I write in response to the rebuttal by Rosette Fenech, head of communications at MIA (February 20), of my submissions in relation to the excessive and unrealistic projections, forecasts, predictions, prophecies (call them what you may for they are all conjecture) forwarded by MIA on passenger movements for 2009.

She embarked on an apparent exercise in chastisement by attempting to justify MIA's claims on the grounds of various studious deliberations.

She implies that it is solely incumbent on the elevated minds commissioned by the MIA to declare such crucial figures and they alone are competent enough to forward such projections. Mere individual members of the public could not possibly command the expertise to base their own findings on similar considerations of the current financial crisis (recession) and other relative factors.

Unlike the MIA management, I have factored in the seriousness of the current financial turmoil affecting Europe, indeed all of the world's economies, and have not underestimated the gravity of this ominous situation, which is impacting disastrously upon a great many people's cash flow.

The true reflection of the negative situation is nowhere more evident than in that most stalwart supporter (and main passenger market force) of all things Maltese - this of course being the UK market. For here the scene is dire and is distressingly exacerbated virtually on a daily basis.

This market alone will ultimately result in a massive drop in passenger movements far exceeding any perceived expectations for 2009.

Ms Fenech advises that more seating capacity will be available presently from the UK and views this aspect as a general panacea and rationale behind the optimistic passenger movement figures.

However, in the current toxic circumstances this forlorn app-raisal is flawed logic, as seating availability does not automatically translate to bums on those seats, to use the airline industry's parlance. This extra seating availability is only a valid argument when disposable incomes are not a pivotal concern. I venture to suggest that foreign air travel will assume a similar mantle to other service industries currently languishing in over-stocked commodities and will soon become an inconceivable objective for many prospective passengers.

I genuinely fear that the MIA's passenger movement forecasts for 2009 will ultimately prove to be erroneous in the extreme. "For errors, like straws upon the waters, flow and he who seeks pearls must dive below".

The turbulence above the skies at MIA is currently only a gentle breeze that may soon develop into a hurricane of never before seen proportions, and while acknowledging that this outlook is immensely pessimistic and depressive it nevertheless is a more pragmatic approach than adopting and cultivating a policy of pretending that all is not as bad as it seems - for in actuality it is much worse!

Time, as always, will reveal all but for now we may work and pray and live on hay - but we'll get enough pie in the sky when we die!