Air Malta refers to the letter entitled Flight-Booking Ordeal For Voters Abroad by Matthew Micallef-Calvagna (29 May). From the outset allow us to express our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused to Mr Micallef-Calvagna.

Air Malta has thoroughly investigated the matter and contacted its Call Centre, Centrecom, to review the incident. It has to be noted that Centrecom opened the reservation line for the flight bookings for voters on Monday afternoon (May 18). Upon the required verification that the technicalities of the whole process were set up and operational, Air Malta issued a media release at 4 p.m. informing the public that flight bookings for voters can be made by contacting the airline's call centre.

However, from the moment that the reservations number was opened, Centrecom was inundated with calls for bookings. In fact, that afternoon, the centre received 496 calls on the "official" line and 573 calls on the "normal" Air Malta reservations line. This translated in a booking request every 30 seconds.

The above is not an excuse for the inconvenience to which the said client was subjected but an explanation of a problem that resulted in view of the high number of requests received in a short period of time.

To compound matters, a mistake was made in Mr Micallef-Calvagna's booking and he was wrongly informed that he could not travel to Luxembourg on the specifically-organised Air Malta flight once he had come to Malta from Brussels. This error is regretted.

Air Malta has always sought to maintain the highest level of customer service and will continue with its endeavours to maintain our high standard. We, once again, express our apologies for any inconvenience caused to the client.

The matter has now been resolved to the satisfaction of both.