Opposition spokesman on tourism Marie Louise Coleiro Preca has called on the government to draw up an aviation policy to safeguard the national airline and tourism. The opposition could not understand the government’s resistance to such a plan and instead of admitting it had never cared it was trying to blame the opposition as if it was oblivious to the realities in aviation.

Dr Coleiro Preca was speaking during the debate on the Budget Measures Implementation Bill, saying that one measure that stood out in the Budget was the increase in VAT on tourism, which was a pillar of the economy, labour-intensive and provided opportunities for employment.

Various indicators in the Economic Survey had already shown that such an important industry was losing ground in the growth of national wealth, but no government spokesman had shown the government was as worried as the opposition.

Last year had been one of the worst years, but this year employment in tourism was not better. Not only had there been decreases in terms of numbers of jobs, but even when comparing average wages in tourism vis-à-vis other sectors, the former were receiving less.

Dr Coleiro Preca said this too was disquieting. Even though numbers of tourists had indeed increased, this increase was not being reflected in the economic indicators. Yet the government seemed to be happy and was increasing the VAT rate when hoteliers were saying that profitability had shrunk because of government-induced costs.

Even the MHRA had said that what had been agreed in March – alternative sources of energy on the basis of which the MHRA had accepted the higher utility tariffs – had not materialised. It had eventually been discovered that the scheme had not even started. Now the Budget was saying the scheme would be reinstated under different parameters.

What was the government trying to do? The tourism industry could create so many opportunities for the country, but the government did not seem to care.

The perennial problem of seasonality had continued to make itself more felt. Fifty years down the line from the first master plan for tourism, a 1999 report by Prof. Lino Briguglio and Marie Briguglio had shown that seasonality had links to the environment, and the industry needed a capacity-carrying exercise. But the annual phenomenon continued not to be taken seriously.

Dr Coleiro Preca said that on average, the five months between May and October saw 82 per cent of Malta’s annual tourism.

Yet another more recent report, by Anthony Ellul in 2008, had still pointed to seasonality and how urgently it needed to be tackled.

All this reflected the need to have a serious strategy and plan, rather than words and reports on shelves. Studies had been made, but no concrete measures taken.

The same Ellul report had said that action plans were being prepared for Dwejra and Qawra, but none had been implemented in either place.

Turning to Air Malta, Dr Coleiro Preca said she and Finance Minister Tonio Fenech had had occasion to discuss the national airline on television. Air Malta’s traffic too was very seasonal, but the airline was the only way to tackle seasonality by going for two very important segments which addressed the phenomenon: conference and incentive travel in the shoulder months. These were events that went for legacy carriers and brought hundreds of delegates and spouses to Malta.

Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo had said one should not make plans for Air Malta so as not to be partisan. But talk about Air Malta could not be avoided if one looked at the future of both the airline and the national economy.

Air Malta carried some 60 per cent of passengers to and from Malta, but there were more dimensions to its importance for the country. It was important for the manufacturing industry, the social sector, carrying people overseas for medical treatment at subsidised rates, and repatriation of illegal immigrants. Making people aware of Air Malta’s importance did not amount to denigrating low-cost carriers.

Dr Coleiro Preca said there were many economic disadvantages that Air Malta had to work against. These included oil prices and changes in aviation patterns. Many people recognised this, but they must also recognise there could be no comparison between Air Malta and other countries’ carriers.

All foreign carriers operating to Malta had huge domestic markets, but Air Malta had none. The country had only one airport to offer. Air Malta was a net importer.

In 1994 Air Malta employees had accepted wage freezes amounting to Lm10 million as part of a limited restructuring, while top tiers, including foreigners, had continued to be well paid. Now, six years later, the Prime Minister had said the restructuring had not been aggressive enough.

Now, when things were worse than ever, the government had asked the opposition to help gnaw the bone. But the opposition had risen to the challenge, doing everything possible to ensure that Air Malta would survive and that Dr Gonzi would keep his promise of job security for the airline’s employees.

Dr Coleiro Preca said it was well known that waste and mismanagement were rife, but in such a time of crisis the minister responsible just said he did not know what was happening. The government was almost the only shareholder in Air Malta, and the directors it appointed should be working on government-given policies.

The government took every opportunity to misrepresent the opposition as being against low-cost carriers. It was not against them but against how they had been introduced. The opposition recognised the importance of low-cost carriers because it was not an ostrich.

Challenges must not be waited for until they fell onto laps, but anticipated, faced and solved. The government had not prepared well for the advent of low-cost carriers. It did not even have an aviation policy to date.

All bigger countries had aviation policies in place, and Malta needed such a policy more than most in order to mitigate various factors. Major principles of an aviation policy would be connectivity, balancing between economic and social benefits of aviation, guarding against greater environmental damage, and national security. In short, an aviation policy was sine qua non for tourism and the economy.

Of course accessibility was important, but it must be looked at in wider context. Capacity must be driven by market demand, but overcapacity would make routes unsustainable.

Dr Coleiro Preca said this was the way the opposition would have wanted to mitigate between the national airline and the entry of low-cost airlines for greater connectivity. The Prime Minister himself had stressed the balance between legacy and low-cost airlines as being absolutely vital for Malta to remain a hub in the Mediterranean.

What policy or strategy did the government have in place for the entry of low-cost airlines?

A quarter-of-a-million seats were flying to and from Malta empty, showing that the government had no sense of coordination. It had gone so far as to declare London an underserved route, allowing Luton to be opened up and affect Air Malta flights from London Heathrow and London Gatwick. Similarly, it had allowed Liverpool to affect Air Malta’s flights to Birmingham, subsidised Trapani against Palermo, and allowed Treviso to force Air Malta to stop flights to Bologna.

Did the government have no bargaining power with low-cost airlines in spite of subsidising 20 of their routes?

In contrast, the Malta Tourism Authority had not launched one campaign addressed to those markets which Air Malta was serving with overcapacity, which was one of the principles against the creation of new routes. Excess capacity was intrinsically linked to the environment and noise pollution.