Air Malta expansion in Sicily

The number of Maltese visiting Sicily, especially Catania, is expected to exceed last year's figure of 30,000 by about nine per cent.

Air Malta's manager in Sicily, Noel Galea, said Air Malta has always viewed the Sicilian market as a natural extension of the small one in Malta.

Throughout the years, he added, the airline's flight schedule has encouraged cultural, commercial and tourism exchanges between the two islands. Sicilians also travel to Malta and then catch connection flights thanks to Air Malta's extensive network covering about 45 destinations in Europe and North Africa. An airline spokesman said the Catania-London (Gatwick) route was now in demand.

No fewer than 30,000 passengers availed themselves of this service in the financial year ended March 2007. In the same period the airline carried 70,000 passengers on the Catania-Malta route.

The spokesman said that, encouraged by this positive response, Air Malta this summer initiated new services from Catania to Munich - where the airline carried 16,000 passengers on its three weekly flights, code-shared with Lufthansa. It also offered two weekly flights to Geneva and flew once a week to Casablanca.

The airline is also operating two weekly flights from Palermo to Malta.