Editorial

Fewer Maltese have been travelling abroad over the last few months. The latest official figures, for January and February, have confirmed the trend after airport passenger numbers dropped by almost a fifth between August and December compared to the same five-month period the year before. In August, the departure tax was doubled to Lm20.

It can't be a coincidence. There may be other factors involved, such as consumers having to shift some of their outlay to cover the rising cost of essential items like water and electricity. But there can be little doubt that many Maltese are being discouraged from travelling by the high departure tax, combined with the rather hefty airport and passenger service charges. To see another country, a family of four now has to pay roughly Lm200 in taxes and charges alone.

That's no small change, especially for a middle-income household which has to carefully calculate its savings in order to take a holiday every now and again, let alone for those in the lower-income brackets. No wonder then, that as the globe shrinks and air fares generally decline, half the Maltese population, according to a recent survey, still never sets foot outside the islands. There has been a justifiable outcry against what is seen as the unfairly high departure tax, as the correspondence columns and a recent online poll by The Times have shown.

Travel, especially for islanders, is no longer deemed a luxury. It is a need: going abroad is a release from stress and the humdrum of everyday life; it may be a requirement that involves work, learning, networking, health; and travelling for the sake of it opens the mind and feeds the soul.

The government says it will rake in some Lm3.8 million from the departure tax this year. That will go towards the overall aim of reducing the national deficit, a target undoubtedly in the long-term national interest. However, there is also the government's obsession with meeting the Maastricht criteria in order for Malta to be able to join the eurozone. Having said that, the Prime Minister did signal his readiness to consider reducing the tax once the government is satisfied its financial objectives are within its grasp.

Yet, reducing the tax sooner, or even eliminating it altogether, as Denmark has just decided to do, would serve the country equally well because it could benefit the national airline by filling more seats. Well over half the respondents to the first survey said they would travel more often if the air fares were reduced by half.

Lifting the tax, or cutting it drastically - as, indeed, other charges levied by both airlines and airports should also be - would almost certainly be translated in more outgoing air passengers. That would be music to Air Malta's ears and could even contribute to the national carrier being able to offer very competitive fares attracting more holiday-makers. In the process, this move may even ease the present clamour for the removal of barriers to allow low-cost carriers to operate to Malta.

Ultimately, such measures seem inevitable if low-cost is the way of the future, as British Airways have just indicated by slashing their European fares in order to compete.

Civil aviation being a very volatile industry, the operators, especially a small carrier like Air Malta, have already a lot to worry about. That is why they can do with every little bit of help.