Updated 6.20pm 

Some 280 Maltese passengers, mostly young footballers, who were supposed to leave Malta for Denmark on Friday morning, have been told not to turn up at the airport as their charter flight had been cancelled.

The passengers told Times of Malta that their flight was booked through the same ‘Air Malta employee broker’ who was involved in a similar incident earlier this week.

Hundreds of footballers from the nurseries of Pieta, Ħamrun and Birkirkara were due to participate in the Dana Cup in Denmark.

“We were supposed to leave at 10 am and all was supposed to be ok. However, earlier this morning we were informed that our chartered flight was cancelled,” an angry parent told Times of Malta.

The tournament is expected to kick off on Monday.

According to the stranded passengers, they have been given no information about what is going to happen, if another plane will be operating the flight or if Air Malta will be stepping in as it has done earlier this week.

Parents said their children have been preparing for this tournament for months and were “counting the minutes” to be in Denmark.

“Tell me how I am supposed to tell my son that he may not be going,” an anxious parent said.

One mother lamented that the girls' team - one of the first female teams to participate since 1982 - might miss the tournament completely.

The nurseries have now been in contact with Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi in order to find a solution.

“Konrad Mizzi was contacted so that he can instruct Air Malta once again to stand in for the problems caused by one of its employees,” a passenger said.

“It cannot be that they didn't know what their employee was doing and so it will be only fair to try and find a solution for us,” a member of one the nurseries said.

Efforts to contact the broker on Friday were in vain. 

Later on Friday, representatives of Pieta' Hotspurs, Birkirkara FC and Hamrun Spartans football nurseries filed an official letter in court calling on the broker to honour his contractual agreement, refund parents money owed and pay up any damages.

The letter was filed by lawyers Franco Debono, Amadeus Cachia and Marion Camilleri.  

Travel agents want wider scope for Travel Insolvency Fund
 
The consecutive failures of two charter operations in the space of less was also flagged by the Federated Association of Travel & Tourism Agents – Malta, which pointed out that travel agents are obliged by law to contribute to an insolvency fund to protect consumers. 

FATTA called for an immediate review of the Travel Insolvency Fund regulations to be widened to include similar protection for consumers against the financial failure of scheduled and charter airlines.  
 
The Package Travel Insolvency Fund regulations currently protect consumers against the insolvency of their travel agent. The fund provides full protection to consumers for advance payments related to any services which are not provided as a result of such insolvency and will also cover the costs of repatriation for any travellers stranded abroad where necessary.   

Travel agents are only permitted to legally sell package holidays if they are registered with the fund.