Carrier’s duty

I read most articles and follow other online items with interest. However, nowhere have I come across what the modus operandi will be once the airport and seaport gates are opened to all and sundry, except for the following.

Our health authorities state that incoming traffic will be obliged to show proof of vaccination or a test which is not more than 72 hours old before being allowed to enter Maltese territory.

Have I missed something somewhere? I would have assumed that our health authorities would have placed the onus for the above pre-conditions on the airline companies and the ferry operators.

I would suggest that, prior to boarding a flight or embarking on a ferry, the operators at the departure end would ask for proof that the person(s) wanting to travel is foreseen of all requirements and equipped with the necessary paperwork.

Not being in possession of such paperwork or being unable to produce proof of some sort that one is vaccinated or has had the test will automatically exclude them from travel. It should be the responsibility of the carrier and not the Malta health authority and airport personnel to guarantee this.

Any visitor arriving in Malta and being unable to produce proof on demand must be returned to the country of departure at the cost of the carrier. The carrier will also be automatically liable to a hefty fine.

I am sure that, should the onus be placed on the air carrier and the ferry operator, our COVID numbers will not re-escalate to unacceptable numbers.

Bernard Storace – Għarb

Airspace rights

Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

I refer to Robert Musumeci’s article “Compensating air spaces” (May 14).

Before I came to Malta I had never given much thought to the concept of “airspace” but here I quickly discovered that it was something jealously guarded as an asset of property ownership.

And, yet, I see, on a daily basis, the arms of tower cranes passing through the airspace of buildings that the crane operators don’t own. In mainland Europe, developers ask permission – and then pay for the privilege – to swing their booms above private property.

I know of cases in the UK where the owners have been paid sums upwards of £20,000 for several month’s access to the air above their rooftops or across their land.

This follows a principle in Roman law, cuius est solum eius esse usque ad coelum (“whoever’s is the soil, so it is theirs up to heaven”).

In Maltese law (so far as I can understand it) the airspace is similarly privately owned property and to pass anything through it is an invasion of privacy amounting to trespass. There are, of course, local laws and rules about the use of tower cranes but none that allows them to operate in or across other people’s property.

What’s amazing is that I have never heard of anybody – not even people who spend most days with tower cranes swinging above their heads – being paid for, or even objecting to, their airspace being so legally abused.

Has everybody rolled over in trepidation of what the developers see as their right to behave as they wish?

Where is the airspace guardianship now?

And where is the compensation for the use of it? Has anybody asked for payment for the use of their airspace?

Maltese property owners seem to be missing out here, big time.

Revel Barker – Għajnsielem

COVID variants’ importation

England sounds worried about their imported Indian COVID variant with its suspected increased transmissibility, albeit still thought to be covered by the current vaccines.

If it’s true that travellers are permitted to arrive in Malta (by air or sea) without full vaccine certification and without a recent negative PCR test, this is, with respect, foolhardy.

An infected traveller could infect others with such a new variant before his/her infective status is established locally and then quarantined.

Can we be reassured that fake vaccination and PCR certificates can be spotted before such fraudulent travellers board means of transport heading to Malta? We need to avoid last year’s stupid auto goals.

Albert Cilia Vincenti – Attard

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