From the online comments board

Airport queues for COVID checks are ‘safety’ concern, says aviation director

Malta is still the only country in Europe, that does not recognise a PCR test as a valid way to enter the country without quarantine. It is also the only country in Europe that made the second booster shot expire after three months against all scientific studies. This farce must end! – Roger Eler

This is absolutely true; it took me one and a half hours from passport check to the health section, no social distances, back to back all the way. The persons also assigned to check COVID certificates would not accept my downloaded certificate. I showed also the green third doze card but this was also not accepted. She insisted to have the COVID certificate downloaded by some helper they provided.

What is the rocket science behind this? What is it that they have that I don’t? The same certificate, same download site but some punter who does the checking does not know the job or doesn’t want to work.

Bunch of amateurs. – Samuel Borg

The difference between Malta and Spain is cranes everywhere, traffic jams, not enough buses. Perhaps that is why they pick Spain and Greece not forms… Sorry to say that as I love it here and wouldn’t live anywhere else but get real people. – Heather Westworth Rivett

What is crazy is that I had to show my COVID pass at the airport in Rome twice before boarding and, yet, still again on return. As a Maltese resident, why do I need to complete a PLF on return home? – Gordon Cook

Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

My travels take me to Italy. Both countries require an EU personal locator form to be filled. Before proceeding to departures at the airport a passenger is required to check in person for verification of his green pass and PLF at the airline’s check-in counter, even if he has made a web check-in. When I enter Italy I just walk out of the terminal without any checks since these have been checked at the departure point.

So why should I queue up for verification of my green pass and PLF when this has already been scrupulously carried out at the departure airport? Don’t Maltese authorities trust the control systems of other countries, in my case Italy?

Last Friday evening four flights landed in a matter of 10 minutes and the queue for COVID document control went from the arrivals exit lounge, through the luggage delivery hall and up the stairs to the point of drop off at the arrivals terminal on the upper floor. – Peter Mifsud

“He added that since the vast majority of people in Malta have been administered a COVID vaccine booster, the authorities might want to consider not checking the documents of those who live on the island since they would likely be fully vaccinated”.

Yes but then residency documents must be checked to prove the arrival ‘lives on the island’. Documents still need to be checked, so no more efficient at all, in fact, less efficient because residency documents don’t have a QR code which can be scanned in five seconds. – C. Cassar