Air Malta needs a strategic shareholding partner if it’s going to survive. It not only needs to balance the books but also make significant profits to eventually buy new aircraft.

It’s most unlikely to manage all this if it’s going to remain a parastatal company with possibly dubious staffing levels.

We are now in different times, tied in to market forces competition, scrutinised by the European Commission, and we can no longer follow the way socialist/communist dictatorships run their industries.

We all hope that Air Malta can make it however, if it doesn’t, it’s not going to be the end of the world for Malta, as many seem to think.

There are far larger European countries than tiny Malta that haven’t got their own national airline – other airlines supply them with the services they need.

Blaming Air Malta’s plight on low-fare airlines is a fallacy – the alternative was an overstaffed (like many government departments) Air Malta quasi-monopoly fleecing us with outrageously high fares.