Government in contact with Air China over strategic partnership – it-Torca

Following the government’s announcement on Friday that the government and Alitalia have decided to end talks over a possible strategic partnership between Air Malta and the Italian airline, Air China is being touted as the next possible investor for the ailing national airline.

The government has always maintained that, if talks with Alitialia were to fall through, a number of fall back options were available to the government, and that no deal would be signed unless the government was convinced that it was in the interest of the airline and its workers. 

In a report published on Sunday in it-Torca citing unnamed sources, it is claimed that the government is in talks with Air China over a possible deal, following preliminary talks which had taken place before the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Alitalia.

According to report, when asked to confirm whether this was in fact the case, tourism minister Edward Zammit Lewis said that at this stage, he would “neither confirm nor deny” that this was the case.

In an interview with the minister published in MaltaToday’s Sunday print edition, when asked whether it is true that talks with Turkish Airlines and Air China were already underway, Zammit Lewis refused to go into specifics, but confirmed that contact had been made to at least initiate negotiations.

“What I can say is this: we are pursuing other avenues for a partnership, but we will not sell ourselves cheap,” he said.

Zammit Lewis also insisted that besides the current short-listed companies, other options were available to the government.

“We have never excluded other options. We do not exclude the possibility of reaching agreements with other airlines: nor even to turn to local investment, as some have suggested,” said the minister.

Last year, the national airline posted losses of €4.2m, down from €16.4 in 2015, a fact that Zammit Lewis said was a source of satisfaction for him, adding that the airline is not far from "the turning point towards commercial viability."