A few months ago, I bought a ticket for my dog to fly with us on Air Malta. However, at the last minute, the dog couldn’t fly and, therefore, we decided to leave him in Malta with a family member.

On the day of the flight, we told Air Malta that we wouldn’t be taking our dog with us and asked them to refund the roughly €170 ticket that we had purchased for him a few months earlier.

Well, the answer was: “No refund”! Then we asked whether we could get a credit note and the answer was...you guessed it: “No credit note”.

Let me just clarify a few details so that readers will be in a better position to understand why we are so furious with this airline.

First, with Air Malta, a ticket has to be purchased way before your departure date, which is already strange because when you take a pet on board with other air companies you pay for the pet at check-in.

This is because the animal is considered to be a ‘luggage item’, as it has to stay in its travel bag/cage under your legs.

Secondly, if it doesn’t take up a seat, meaning that the animal literally stays under your legs and therefore doesn’t stop potential passengers from booking a seat, why should that ticket not be refunded, considering the airline doesn’t lose any bookings?

And, last but not least, if a pet passes away before flying on Air Malta, would its owner be told: “I’m sorry, not only did you lose your pet but also €170, which we cannot refund”?

Air Malta have really done it this time and people have to know about it as it is just unfair. I have all the e-mails I sent to their customer care unit over the past few months but now I’m tired of us animal lovers not being heard or being treated like a bunch of idiots. For us, life in Malta seems to be a constant “no, sorry we can’t walk there because we have a pet, we can’t sit there because we have a pet, we can’t rent that because we have a pet...

Enough is enough. I think it’s time we all made our voices heard.