Air Malta’s annual general meeting was put on hold indefinitely pending a decision by the government on the way forward, civil aviation industry sources said.
Though the accounts for the year ended March 2016 had long been completed, the board of directors decided not to publish them as yet, giving time to the main shareholder – the government – to decide on the future of the airline, the sources said.
The national air carrier usually holds its AGM by October but, so far this year, no date has been indicated, they added.
An Air Malta spokesman said that the airline’s financial results were being audited by external auditors “and this process is in its final stages”.
Asked for a date on when the AGM would be held, the spokesman replied: “In line with previous years, the airline’s financial results will be presented during the AGM, which date will be communicated in due course.”
Audit firm PwC is Air Malta’s external auditor.
The sources pointed out that the delay in deciding what to do with regard to the pending talks with Alitalia over the possible purchase of a 49 per cent stake risked negatively affecting Air Malta’s future, particularly with regard to the postponement of crucial decisions. “The airline is in complete paralysis and procrastination by the government can only cause more difficulties to the airline,” the sources said.
“It has been pretty obvious for a long time that negotiations with Alitalia are going nowhere. At the same time, the Maltese airline’s management is in limbo and unable to make a number of important decisions including on the hedging of fuel and the leasing of aircraft, apart from contracts nearing their end in a few weeks’ time including the air carrier’s customer care call centre,” they continued.
The Times of Malta last week reported that the government re-opened technical discussions with the European Commission in a bid to try to negotiate a further capital injection in the national airline, indicating the talks with Alitalia had collapsed or were on the verge of collapsing. It is not known whether any progress has been registered with Brussels.
According to strict EU rules, Air Malta cannot receive any more subsidies from the government as it was expected to be in a position to stand on its own two feet by March 2016 – the end of the five-year restructuring plan that had been agreed with the European Commission.
Air Malta’s legal representatives warned in court last summer that the company would go bust if a strategic partner were not found by the end of October.
However, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis, who is politically responsible for the airline, told Parliament this week that, through more savings made over the past weeks, Air Malta had so far managed to survive.