Direct flights between Malta and the United States are unlikely to happen any time soon, Malta Airport's CEO said on Thursday.

Replying to questions during a New Year press conference, Alan Borg said the numbers aren’t yet there to justify the connection. 

“Realistically, seeing a direct connection to the US in the short to medium term is challenging,” he said. 

“The mathematics around operating a long-haul flight compared to a short one are dramatically different. Long-haul costs an airline around three to four times more to operate.” 

In February last year Prime Minister Robert Abela discussed the possibility of Ethiopian Airlines using Malta as a stopover for flights to the United States when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali visited Malta for a few hours.

In 2021 Lufthansa operated 12 charter flights between Malta and Newark to ferry cruise liner passengers.

Malta, Borg said, does not have enough travellers to justify the operation of a regular direct route. 

For the time being, he continued, Malta International Airport's plan was to continue expanding its connectivity with Europe so that American travellers who wanted to come here had shorter connections. 

“We will continue to grow our number organically and then make our case again to the North American airlines to fly to us directly,” Borg said. 

Leslie Vella, deputy CEO of the Malta Tourism Authority said that Malta saw  around 50,000 travellers from the US every year. Arrivals in 2023 - which came to around 48,000 people - had surpassed the 44,000 travellers who came to Malta in 2019, the last full year before Covid.

“We continue to be very active in pursuing this market, we find it very attractive, it has a traveller profile that has the attributes that we’re after - smart and sophisticated with year-round interest and interested in what we have to offer - a cultural product,” Vella said.

He said the authorities also saw something similar with the Australian market.