Airport security tax

I refer to the letter by Simon Sultana, public affairs administrator at Malta International Airport and would like to thank him for confirming my doubts of the involvement of Vienna Airport authorities for the proposed new security tax at MIA.

As I stated in my letter of July 31, and confirmed by Mr Sultana, the request for this security tax was made by MIA in September, 1999 and was approved by the government and incorporated in the Lm1 increase which took effect from April 1, 2000.

The MIA service charge was increased from Lm5 to Lm6. This was not denied by Mr Sultana. As a matter of fact, all those who travel by sea are still paying a Lm5 departure tax plus Lm10 government tax, for the simple reason that the Malta Maritime Authority did not ask for an increase in the departure tax to cover any extra security measures taken at the harbour!

Mr Sultana alleged that I was trying to confuse readers by stating that "Malta has the second highest departure tax in Europe after Britain". Yet again, he did not deny this. I stated that MIA is charging Lm6 and the other Lm10 is charged by the Malta civil aviation authorities.

Every passenger who departs from Malta International Airport and buys his/her ticket in Malta pays Lm16 in departure taxes. That is why I appealed to Michael Refalo, as minister responsible for tourism, not to approve this new security tax, because this has already been effective for more than two years now!