Air Malta

[News Guru]

[textarea]Air Malta confirm Birmingham flights

Air Malta has confirmed it will launch of charter flights from Birmingham Airport this summer. From May 1 the airline will operate a weekly charter flight to and from Birmingham, running until the end of October the Malta Independent reports.

Philip Saunders, chief commercial officer for Air Malta, said: ‘These charter flights increase accessibility to the islands from Birmingham and offer travellers the opportunity to reduce travelling time and costs. This service was made possible following the support received from Birmingham Airport as well as from tour operators and travel trade partners in the area. We expect to carry around 8,000 passengers on these services.'

Air Malta will operate a full service offering on the charter flights including 20kgs for checked-in baggage and up to 10kgs as hand luggage allowance.

For more information on this airport news story visit: http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp? ... mid=141201[/textarea]

 

[Ray Finkle]

Good to see Air Malta doing 2x weekly flights this summer Tue & Sat. They're charter flights but also available on the website.

 

[User001]

Air Malta are making a scheduled return to BHX, rather than just a charter on behalf of Thomson. Flights run every Tuesday on A319/A320 from 3rd May 2016 and fully bookable on Air Malta website.

KM174 MLA 1820 BHX 2035
KM175 BHX 2125 MLA 0130

 

[jfy1999]

Will the Friday flight continue on behalf of Thomson?

 

[User001]

It doesn't appear to be bookable.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Tuesdays only for Thomson and the same for Thomas Cook, both with Air Malta.

A great time for Ryanair to increase frequency.

 

[jfy1999]

Air Malta is being restructured under its new alliance with Alitalia. Around a third of its current European destinations are to be cut with the new focus being on North African routes.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/article...ew-direction-south-under-proposed-plan.622585

Cardiff and Exeter have been dropped for next summer. BHX survives...for now.

 

[jfy1999]

BHX is on the website for next summer with no change from this year.

While it is nice to see them sticking with us, I'm finding their strategy hard to understand.

After seeing the news of their restructuring I thought that could spell curtains for BHX, as with it being just 1 weekly you would have thought it was a "marginal" route, yet MAN went instead (although it will return and apparently at 3x weekly).

The amazing thing is that if they wanted to increase flights, Air Malta would have a lot of growing room - Ryanair have stuck at 3x weekly so far, TCX have just 1 weekly A320, Jet2 1 weekly 738 and we have no easyJet.

They will be entering a code sharing alliance with Ryanair (yes, Ryanair) on flights from Europe and the aim is to create a hub in MLA for passengers travelling to Africa. So we might technically see that frequency increase, but in the form of a codeshare on the Ryanair flights...

 

[Ray Finkle]

Outside of London their flights just seem like glorified weekly charters for Thomson.

It wasn't too long ago that we had a based aircraft, my in laws flew them to a Greek Island and were very impressed. It's good that they still have a presence though.

I wouldn't have seen a tie up with Ryanair on the cards but they've been building their base over the last few years so I guess it makes sense.

I wonder if Monarch have ever considered adding Malta.