It has always concerned me that the cost of flights from one day to the next should vary so much. The airlines know exactly how much it costs to fly from A to B. So why not just have one fixed price for everyone on all days? The only variables will be fuel costs and the greed of the shareholders. I know the answer, of course.

I looked at a couple of weeks in September for Air Malta and discovered that if you fly from Gatwick to Luqa, daily fares vary from £88.65 to £167.79, an average of £123.41 per flight over the 14 days. So why not just charge the £123.41 all the time? Why employ a team of accountants to come up with different fares for different days? Their salary costs could easily be saved.

If you average out the year, travellers would have the confidence of booking well in advance. The airline knows what it needs in turnover and how many people travel. The calculation is simple. But, of course, we all know this is not how business works. Squeeze them until it hurts, confuse the market so they do not know what they are paying for. Of course.

But a more sinister result was that if you book flights that start in Malta as opposed to starting in London then the average price is higher than from London to Malta by as much as £21 per flight. That is £42 on the round trip! Why do Maltese travellers pay more than the UK traveller for the same service?