Despite a better than expected number of air passengers arriving in July and August, the CEO of Malta Air predicts things will get worse for tourism before they get better.
Diarmuid O’Conghaile says the Ryanair subsidiary continues to operate in damage control mode because of the ongoing pandemic.
“When Ryanair planned its financial year between April 2019 and March 2020, we intended to carry 150 million passengers. In reality, we’ve carried less than half that.”
Like most airlines around the world, Malta Air went from operating at 100 per cent to one per cent in the space of three weeks. Since then, it has been trying to adapt to the ever-changing precautions being taken by European governments to stem the spread of COVID-19.
“Ryanair was one of the first airlines up-and-running on July 1, despite not receiving any government aid like Lufthansa and Air France,” O’Conghaile says.
He says July saw flights in and out of Malta operating at 40% capacity, while August increased to 70%. However, this is not expected to continue into autumn.
“There is a pent-up demand for travel in July and August,” adds O’Conghaile. “But it’ll be a rough winter. Demand has taken a big hit and it will take a bit of time for that to be restored.”
The low-cost carrier is hoping to move that restoration along quicker, by selling 250,000 seats for September and October for just €14.99.
Those who are choosing to travel to Malta now are mainly coming from the UK, Ireland and Italy with 85 Ryanair flights arriving each week in July. This figure will increase to 133 in August, bringing around 17,000 people to the islands every week.
“The Maltese economy is heavily reliant on us,” adds O’Chonghaile. “While every other airline here is cutting capacity, we are bringing people in.”
No redundancies at Malta Air
He stresses that there have been no redundancies at Malta Air. Instead it has cut the pay of its 1,200 pilots by 20%, a similar move made at group level by Ryanair for staff in France, Ireland and the UK.
“We’ve been able to keep our 2,500 employees in jobs. We feel this is very positive, given the aviation industry as a whole is expected to shed between 80,000 and 100,000 workers by the time the pandemic is over.”
Ryanair launched subsidiary airline Malta Air in 2019, operating out of Malta with a fleet of six aircraft that was expected to increase to 10 over three years. The airline aimed to carry five million passengers in the first five years of operation.