I read with great concern the article regarding Air Malta’s new plans, which are apparently drawn up in agreement with Alitalia. In a nutshell, this to me means that Air Malta would be giving up one-third of its present European routes in exchange for new routes to North Africa and the Middle East.

I would like to address my concern to the Minister for Tourism, the Minister of Finance and also to the Prime Minister to weigh seriously such a decision and see the negative consequences such an agreement might have.

Our financial services industry, a pillar of our economy and which, in the 1990s, represented about three per cent of a much smaller GDP and has today risen to over 15 per cent of a much larger GDP, would definitely suffer from such a decision.

Our financial industry has long been pleading with various administrations to increase Air Malta’s European routes and not curtail them and, then, ironically in exchange for North African and Middle East routes.

I recall the Malta-Spanish Chamber of Commerce (of which I was a founding member) together with the then ambassador of Spain plead with the ministry to have direct flights to Spain and Portugal throughout the year.

The success of our financial services is due to the professionalism of the Malta players at hand but is also due to clients having easy access to Malta to come for board meetings and regular reviews. Alitalia could not give a hoot about our financial services industry but the Malta government should.

So here I plead with the Prime Minister to look into the whole aspect of this deal with Alitalia and the various consequences to our whole economy, including exports and the rest.