On a recent flight to Rome, via Reggio Calabria, a group of Maltese loudly complained about the lousy service of Air Malta which makes them have to waste an extra hour for them to arrive to Rome.

My immediate reaction was that on this particular flight the load from Malta was around 25 while around 80 boarded the flight from Reggio to Rome. I told one of the locals that it is obvious that the only way for us to have a second flight to Rome was because of the stopover in Reggio: without that stopover it would not be sustainable for Air Malta to operate the flight.

I thank Air Malta for providing us with a second chance to travel to Rome, whatever time it takes.

I would go further. It is high time that the Malta Tourism Authority supports Air Malta on these flights from Reggio and Catania. Our Italian clients are very impressed with the Air Malta service, so MTA should advertise Malta on those flights and should support Air Malta with more advertising in these two cities and the ones around them. For instance Messina should be targeted for advertising as they prefer to cross over to Reggio and fly from there rather than go down to Catania.

There is no doubt that this is the way forward for Air Malta if they are to survive. There are ample more opportunities for them. They have already done a lot and successfully too. We should all support these efforts as in these days of severe competition we are lucky that we still have such a good national airline supporting us.