Judging by the myriad of comments raised regarding Arriva’s services it is manifestly apparent that, notwithstanding a great deal of dissatisfaction, a great many people possess a massive misconception about who exactly now owns this multi-faceted transport company and about this company’s place of origin, which I hope I may now clarify once and for all.

While it must be made known that originally the company was an English one, founded by the Cowie family of Sunderland(UK) as a motorcycle shop in 1938 and subsequently formed as Arriva in 1997, it is now owned outright (acquired in August 2010) by the German group Deutsche Bahn and although it still maintains its head office in the UK (for logistical reasons alone) it cannot remotely be accused of being an English company any longer.

When it commenced operations in Malta in July it was a fully-owned German company which currently also operates in a total of 12 European countries.

So to declare Arriva an English company is not only an inaccurate claim but sadly is a foregone and outdated recognition and one can only hope that eventually the highly-prized German qualities of organisation, reliability and efficiency will prevail and permeate the Arriva Malta branch, while overcoming the present confusion and lack of such commendable attributes highly prevalent by their virtual total absence.