Thursday, 3rd July 2008 - 11:33CET
350 cruise passengers fly direct from the US to Malta
Some 350 American cruise passengers were flown directly from the United States to Malta last night to start a cruise from here after their aircraft's departure to Fiumicino, Rome was delayed because of technical problems.
The delay meant that the passengers could not join their Holland America cruise liner Noordam at Civitavecchia.
The cruise operators in association with their local agents Gollcher, however, made quick arrangements for the flight to come to Malta.
The passengers arrived during the night and were accommodated in hotels in Malta while the ship, which normally sails into Grand Harbour on Fridays, is to come to Malta this afternoon when another 300 passengers will be disembarked to take the return flight to the United States.
Kris Paris, general manager of cruise terminal operator Viset told timesofmalta.com that the development was significant for Malta in that it was the first time that cruise passengers were flying to and from the United States directly from Malta. That Malta had been chosen for an operation involving in excess of 600 passengers reflected the confidence of the operators in Malta's airport, hotel and cruise terminal facilities.
The Noordam will stay overnight in Malta and resume its normal itinerary tomorrow.
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Comments
The only airline operating that direct service was Balkan Air.
It was not continued for reasons unknown to me.
Will someone lighten as to what happened to this service?
Hundreds of thousands of Americans fly to the afore mentioned embarcation points to start and finish their cruise.
The time seems to be ripe for Viset, Gollcher and others to take the initiative and draw up a proper schedule in partnership with cruise line operators, and not wait for other emergency situations. The appropriate marketing infrastructure needs to be set up. At present Malta suffers from the chicken and the egg syndrome. Direct flights from the US do not exist because there is no demand. But there is no demand because millions of US tourists do not know that Malta exists, and as a result cruise line operators have no urgency to provide the supply.
In the islands of the Caribbean and in the Far East, including the island of Phuket in Thailand, cruise liners call by the dozen every single day. We have recorded some progress in this sector, but we could do much better.