The Opposition this afternoon raised a number of concerns about Air Malta, after the airline this morning said it planned to carry more passengers on fewer aircraft, maximising operational efficiency.

Addressing a news conference this afternoon, shadow minister Claudio Grech said the Air Malta statement was so vague that it raised questions about how they the management planned to carry out its plan without jeopardising the fleet capacity and without people losing their jobs.

Although he did not say that the Nationalist Party was outrightly against a reduction in the airline's fleet in principle, it had a number of concerns.

So it wanted to know how this was going to happen.

Air Malta's strategic national interest, he insisted, should remain a priority.

Mr Grech, who was accompanied by spokesmen Antoine Borg and Censu Galea, said the airline had to ensure that, for the coming years, it had sufficient liquidity and capital to execute the restructuring process completely.

It should immediately determine what investment could be carried out with the involvement of local investors, who had the national interest at heart.

Capital injections, they said, should not necessary come from sale of shares and could come from local investors.

They said they were against private entities taking over Air Malta because the airline brought in 50 per cent of package tour arrivals.

They also raised concerns that a private entity would work hand in hand with the government to sustain this.

Mr Grech said Air Malta’s management had to determine the role and character of the airline clearly and distinctly from that of its main competitors.

Air Malta could not operate on the model of a legacy airline while offering a low cost service. Moreover, there should not be a reduction in aircraft or routes more than committed with the EU as part of the restructuring programme.

The Nationalist Party, he said, was in favour of the airline having strategic alliances to enter new markets. These should be complementary to its operations and should not serve as a pretext for another airline to weaken Air Malta’s relevance.

The government and management of Air Malta should be vigilant more than ever before to safeguard Air Malta’s reputation.

In all this, workers’ dignity should be safeguarded and reasonable conditions of work should be preserved.

He said the government should not allow the airline to become a politically partisan club serving interests that were not commercial.

Air Malta, he pointed out, was Malta’s sole national airline with a strategic mission in both the tourism and wider economic sectors.

So under no circumstance should it be contemplated that it was placed under the control of enterprises for whom the country’s strategic interests was not a priority.

Air Malta’s future policy should be long term and should not vary from one legislature to another.

They said that in view of the unavoidable competition the airline had to face, its operations should be built exclusively on commercial considerations.