Finally, Arriva have arrived. After months of untiring efforts by Marsacala mayor Mario Calleja, Arriva have finally come up with route X5 to take us residents of the former Jerma and St Thomas Bay area to Valletta.

Last Tuesday, we boarded bus X5 from Noqra bus stop in St Thomas Bay at 7.55 a.m. (scheduled 7.45). We passed through Żejtun, Bir id-Deheb, Għaxaq, Gudja, arriving at the airport at 8.20 to take some more passengers to Valletta. Here, the bus driver informed us that since “luckily, we did not encounter heavy traffic and, consequently, arrived 10 minutes earlier than schedule, we have to wait in the bus for another 10 minutes, up to 8.30 a.m., before continuing our journey to Valletta”. This means that if the bus had left Marsascala on time it would have arrived at the airport at 8.10, resulting in a waiting time of 20 minutes. It is just beyond imagination that someone could design and time a route from Marsascala to the airport to take 45 minutes.

More surprises were in store for us Marsascala commuters. After some minutes, the driver returned to the bus and asked us to get off our bus and board another one that was going to Valletta immediately. Obviously, we all obliged only to find the other bus nearly full with some commuters already standing.

I mailed Arriva but received this answer: “Route management falls completely under the jurisdiction of Transport Malta and the routes/timings are therefore solely designed by Transport Malta”.

We are highly convinced that with Austin Gatt now justly relegated to the Second Division, the Prime Minister, who is heading the newly-set up task force, would fine tune this route and put the house in order to the satisfaction of us all. With the wintry months looming, undue hardships should be eliminated.