I cannot but agree with Neville Vassallo (June 28). The same sort of thing happened to me and my wife on booking a flight to Malta from Marseille.

Knowing it is quite difficult to book on a flight to Malta in the peak summer season, I went around three months in advance to make my reservation for the beginning of August. To my astonishment the date on which I wanted to fly was fully booked.

According to the agency we could not even be listed on the waiting list. As a result I had to book via Paris. In the meantime I was obliged to purchase the tickets as a result of the new Air Malta procedure, that is to purchase the tickets within seven days of the reservation date.

By chance I got to know that at the end of last week a friend of mine managed to book a seat on a flight to Malta from Marseille on that very date on which the flight was fully booked three months ago. I could not believe it, so I phoned my agency to clarify the situation.

The reply was that some seats previously blocked by some agencies/tour operators were released. This situation is getting worse, year after year, and is unacceptable.

I guess Air Malta needs to handle this matter together with some others, such as customer service, in-flight service and prices.