Gozo, being a smaller island within an island, requires alternative sustainable mobility to foster more efficient social and working interaction without spending most of one's day waiting to get across the channel and back, that is if you get back in time.

Unscheduled changes are experienced regularly. I remember once I got stuck in Cirkewwa due to a circus going aboard a ship to the detriment of the resident commuters. Despite the heavy positive publicity it gets, the ferry service is just one way to get there, although it has greatly improved over the years it has enjoyed total monopoly.

General aviation transportation, namely fixed wing, exists all over the world. The situation over here is crippled by some counterproductive political game. Such transportation has never been taken seriously in the local culture despite the major spin-offs it would bring to the inter-island economy. Visiting private aircraft stimulate upmarket tourism that requires car rental, hotels, farmhouses, restaurants and aviation-related services that create many specialised jobs all year round.

The Gozo Tourism Association is very unhappy with the new seaplane operation, rightly so as time and again the commuters are not really factored in. The whole investment in this new operation can only sustain itself by tapping into cruise liner shore excursions that begin and end at Grand Harbour. Unfortunately, it appears that the air link is just the password to enter this booming niche market. However, I wish them every success in filling the inter-island air mobility void.

The fact of the matter that it is about time a small airstrip be put in place, to truly have a reliable air link, Gozo can still maintain tranquillity by introducing quiet hours or noise abatements on weekends, holidays etc. Today the noise levels of regional aircraft and light fixed-wing aircraft are much lower then that produced by helicopters the island had to endure for many years without real success.