In an article on another local Sunday Paper back in January I underlined the need to stop valuing Air Malta, let alone managing it, from an emotional perspective. Part of the emotionalism Air Malta invokes is due to that patriotic feeling triggered typically by airlines which flew the flag. Air Malta to the Maltese is no exception in this regard despite of its lack of legacy to the aviation world.

The airline served Malta very well in its 44-year operational history, acting as a catalyst in developing the flourishing tourism industry of today. It also provided the Maltese population with reliable air transport services to mainland Europe and the MENA region to meet its social and business needs. In the meantime, a small local community of aviation professionals was also nurtured, which otherwise would have numbered far less.

But economic and social contributions to Malta apart, Air Malta was always an operator way smaller than most regional carriers, let alone at par with the legacy carriers. By industry standards KM was and remains a leisure carrier, reliant on tour operators’ business in the past and more on the individual tourist and travelling public in recent years. Its overall product was never a standard setter but merely reflected the average industry offering as times went by.

The mentality of ‘we set it up, we save it’ is evident

In contrast, the legacy carriers revered by their respective home nations either laid technological milestones or set product offering benchmarks, or defined the industry and science of commercial air transport. The irony is that a number of these carriers today either no longer exist or are not managed or perceived with the same dose of sentimentalism as Air Malta is.

Following the European Commission’s imposed restructuring, noteworthy efforts were deployed to prop up the otherwise bankrupt airline. Yet, moribund, the emotional baggage prevails throughout the two strategical approaches adopted of late. Worse still, emotional strategies denote muddled vision.

The intended partial sale was inherently flawed. It merely imitated what other European troubled regionals such as Air Berlin and Darwin Airlines did, namely in selling a good chunk of themselves to Etihad. And thus it was wrongly assumed by whoever was leading the initiative locally that selling a good part of KM to Etihad was a good move worth trying. Nothing visionary in that; but only an inflated sentimental approach of wishing KM to be part-owned by a Gulf ruler; the financial backing this brings to it, and the mistaken expectation that the new Gulf partial owners would pour money come what may. Indeed, this attempt ended with KM looking to Alitalia for its rescue rather than Etihad itself.

It’s been now almost a year since KM has been following a different strategy. Given the lack of solid interest by formidable carriers under the previous approach, it makes good sense for KM to put its house in order first. One sees this in the corporate restructuring which took place, in the network and fleet growth and the changes in the product offering. Commendable efforts, yet the shackles of sentimentalism can easily be pointed out.

Being government-owned, commercial decisions at Air Malta are blended with political undertones. From a political perspective this is understood, as any government has to play the rules of the game in order to stay in power. Appeasing the public, or being perceived that it is taking the best course of action with taxpayers’ assets, is paramount. With KM having been established by the Labour Party in 1973, it is in the interest of the current government to be seen as the saviour of the airline. The mentality of ‘we set it up, we save it’ is evident.

Nothing wrong with that so long as this is done on the basis of skilled, commercial decision-making. Yet, this didn’t happen with so many examples abroad, let alone will it happen in highly politically charged Malta with Air Malta perceived as the apple of the government’s eye.                 

Weighed down in this way, KM has yet demonstrated a muddled vision. Most of the efforts were in playing catch up; in reclaiming lost markets which in any case won’t be the same for KM as by this time, their fundamentals have already changed. Network growth has not been adequately matched by fleet growth as operationally the fleet is now stretched. Negative consequences to this have been seen recently.

The introduction of small regional aircraft is being considered when the network is shaped otherwise. Partnering with Ryanair for sales while planning to upgrade the business class product, not to mention that first class, was even mentioned early last summer. Meanwhile the main product offering is now low cost in design.        

Emotionalism in labour relations is not a good success recipe either. The airline does not financially afford the generous contractual conditions it committed to earlier with its flight crew. While it was a good move to seek industrial relations stability for the next five years in an attempt to eliminate any risk of being culled by its own staff, KM went overboard without achieving its purpose. One only needs to recall the recent pilots’ decision to strike simply because a newly leased aircraft recorded pilot conversations. For the record, this is industry standard in the Gulf.      

And in case our sovereign territorial needs are too humble to make us proud in this experimental commercial air transport endeavour, sights have been set on the larger arena of the Mediterranean... sovereignty and success do not always go hand in hand.         

Clive Aquilina Spagnol is a commercial aviation executive working in the Gulf. He has been engaged in airline management with carriers in the region and Asia. He also served as Head, Air Transport Regulation, at the Malta Civil Aviation Directorate.