Air Malta's growth lower than average

Although posting some encouraging results, Air Malta's increase in passenger numbers last year was lower than the average growth among European airlines, according to data released by the Association of European Airlines (AEA).

While the number of passengers using Air Malta's scheduled services grew by 3.1 per cent, the 31 member airlines of the AEA managed an average of 4.8 per cent growth, putting airline traffic back to the results achieved before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Air Malta carried a total of 1,350,000 passengers. This translated into a load factor of 70.3 per cent, which still put it ahead of other European airlines such as Finnair, BMI, Meridiana, Spanair, Luxair, Olympic Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines.

The best performing airline last year in terms of load factor was KLM, registering 81.8 per cent.

AEA's members include the major European airlines such as British Airways, Air France, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Virgin.

A spokesman for the association said the passenger count for the year was over 307 million, of whom almost 209 million flew on international services. He said that part of the growth represented a recovery of traffic lost in 2003 due to the effects of the Iraqi war and the SARS epidemic. In fact, in an industry which has suffered a succession of setbacks in recent years, 2004 passenger figures represented a long-awaited recovery to pre-2001 levels.

Meanwhile, the AEA reacted strongly to moves by the EU to slap a tax on aviation fuel, saying that the industry was in the midst of a fundamental crisis and a new tax would mean a final blow for most of the airlines.

During a recent meeting of G7 finance ministers in London, EU finance council president Jean-Claude Juncker said the Union was considering the introduction of a tax on kerosene - the fuel used by the aviation industry - in order to find a new way to raise funds for debt relief for the world's poorest countries.

The idea of a kerosene tax on aviation was originally proposed by the Greens as a way of dealing with increasing air traffic and its implications for the environment and climate change.

Germany and France recently gave their backing to the kerosene tax proposal. However, it seems unlikely that it will get global approval, with the US and the UK very much opposed to it.