The first Air France scheduled flight to Malta arrived at MIA from Toulouse this morning.

The inaugural flight - AF4370 on an Airbus A319 - was saluted by the Malta Airport Fire & Rescue team with a water arch, and passengers welcomed by the Paul Curmi Dancers, and given traditional Maltese Honey Rings and flowers.

Tourism Minister Mario de Marco said there will be twice weekly flights between Toulouse and Malta for the rest of the year.

Dr de Marco spoke of the importance of the French market to Malta saying it was the fourth biggest market with arrivals exceeding 100,000 for the first time last year.

Malta, he said, was being marketed in France and would be featuring in Air France's in-flight and e magazines.

French journalists will also be coming over on educational visits.

The minister said that direct scheduled routes to and from Malta had increased from 47 in 2007 to 81 this year, including from four French airports.

Malta was also seeing how to increase visitors and increased the number from Israel tenfold - from 3,000 in 2009 to 30,000 this year and tripled the number of visitors from Spain from 20,000 in 2009 to 60,000 this year.

Air France has chosen Air Malta as its preferred ground handling provider.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.