Air Malta will be marking 40 years from its inaugural flight tomorrow. The airline’s first flight, from Malta to London Heathrow, took off on April 1 in 1974. The passengers aboard the Boeing 720B aircraft were mostly journalists and travel agents flying to meet their British counterparts for a six-hour reception in London.In its first year of operation, Air Malta carried 53,459 passengers. This has grown to 1.7 million.