The volcanic ash cloud crisis has cost Air Malta hundreds of thousands of euros in lost revenue every day, according to the airline's CEO Joe Cappello.
"The preliminary estimate of the financial impact on Air Malta runs into hundreds of thousands euros in lost revenue each day of the crisis. Moreover, this crisis can also have an impact on future bookings which were picking up for summer," Mr Cappello told The Times Business.
Europe yesterday started to reopen its skies almost a week after the eruption of an Icelandic volcano grounded most planes. About 75 per cent of European flights operated yesterday, according to the air traffic agency Eurocontrol.
At least 95,000 flights were cancelled in the past six days, and the air transport group IATA says the disruptions cost the industry $1.7 billion.
Air Malta yesterday operated its scheduled flights to and from Zurich, Frankfurt, Berlin Tegel, Manchester, Brussels, Heathrow, Rome-Reggio, Geneva-Catania, Milan, Gatwick and Gatwick-Marseille and also introduced extra flights to Gatwick and Zurich in an effort to quickly reduce the backlog of stranded passengers.
Mr Cappello said Air Malta has been flying a very restricted programme since April 15 due to the cloud of volcanic ash over northern Europe.
"Most of the flights from Malpensa northwards were cancelled. For the last few days we have operated a number of extra flights to Rome, Graz, Marseilles, Zurich, and Toulouse. Today the situation is a bit better with the airspace over Europe slowly opening up," he said.
Mr Cappello said Air Malta has made alternative arrangements for cargo stuck in Frankfurt by trucking it to other airports currently serviced by KM.
"In fact we are making use of all available flights, namely, Marseille, Toulouse and Rome. Yesterday afternoon we finalised trucking arrangement arrangements to Zurich where we operated a flight," he said.
Mr Cappello said this was all possible due to the fact since last Friday the airline has operated over 45 relief flights to mainland Europe.
Air Malta's CEO said the backlog of flights could take days to be cleared and over the last few days Air Malta has beefed up its resources at customer contact points.
"Our MIA sales offices had a full complement of frontline staff that had the backing of additional staff from head office. Our call centre was also beefed up with additional staff and extended its services until midnight and opened up a 5 a.m. seven days a week.
"We have honoured all Air Malta tickets as well as those of our code-share partners, and we have offered passengers free rebooking and change of class fees as well as re-routings to different airports," he said.