For reasons that I needn’t explain, I found myself on the inaugural flight of Air Malta to Rome, getting on for half a century ago.

I had never been to Rome, and I didn’t want to go, but fate took me there and my memory of it remains as the worst landing I have ever experienced on a commercial flight.

Those people who know their local history will be aware that, at the time (1974) it was not even ‘Air Malta’ – but Pakistan Airlines ‘operating as Air Malta’.

It was actually at the end of the visit during which I had discovered and fallen in love with Gozo.

I thought at the time that there must have been an airline that could assist the fledgling national carrier business somewhere nearer than Karachi, but then, I thought – as I have thought so often since – that’s Malta. They do things differently, here.

Some years later I became a ‘consultant’ and calculated that I could live here and commute to London.

It would mean a lot of flying, but it would be worth it for the opportunity to live in a place with a view directly across the water into Comino’s Blue Lagoon.

To get here in those days the choice was between Air Malta (KM) and British Airways. One of my ‘consultancies’ involved working fairly closely with the director of security for BA. When he knew I was flying BA he would get me upgraded (a big deal if I was going to New York; it was within his gift).

I asked him why his airline was more expensive than Air Malta for an identical journey. He said: “Because people are prepared to pay more to fly with us.”

Well, it was my own money I was spending so I flew KM. I knew what he meant, though, because I’m a person who needs (and is willing to pay for) extra legroom. But I frequently found that those seats had already been booked and were – often – occupied by people whose legs didn’t reach the floor and sometimes by old ladies doing their knitting beside the emergency exit.

I wrote to Air Malta about this: they always said it shouldn’t have happened and they would look into it. In short, Air Malta was a bit of a shemozzle.

Air Malta has been run, from the start, by politicians rather than by experienced airline operators- Revel Barker

I have always had the impression of it as an airline that appeared to be trying to be up there with the big-time operators but didn’t quite crack it. (And when I say ‘always’ I mean over the last 48 years.)

Recently, of course, Malta has decided to attract the cheap end of the tourist industry and has consequently found itself competing with a number of low-cost airlines. Except that it couldn’t compete: it didn’t have the routes, for a start. It was vastly overstaffed, for a finish.

A photo in this newspaper has stuck in my mind: it showed a group of 30 pilots protesting about something or other – while the airline was operating ‘normally’, without them.

When the government had surplus staff anywhere it transferred them to Air Malta as if the company was a refuge for the otherwise unemployable. It’s no way to run an airline.

On paper, it has twice the number of staff it actually needs to operate efficiently.

The result for the non-charter passenger might be a choice between €20 and €120 for a one-way flight to the UK.

For even the best-intentioned passenger (and taxpayer), flying the flag and supporting the local economy has its limits.

The EU does not allow airlines to be subsidised to beat price competition and quite a few consequently went bust: Olympic and Alitalia come easily to mind.

On the other hand, subsidies are okay for remote islands (like Gozo ferries).

It would be interesting to find out what the economic fare for the channel crossing would be: it might be worth trying, to discover whether people thought it was actually worth paying.

Because the ferries are another place where jobs-for-votes appear easily accessible and overstaffing is rife.

Because it has been run, from the start, by politicians rather than by experienced airline operators, Air Malta has not really had a chance. But, as we say, that’s Malta.

Having its own airline supposedly meant that Malta was a nation to be reckoned with, like, er, Italy and Greece. But it takes more than identifying livery on a Boeing jet to run an airline. Or, for that matter, to run a country.

It means having an economic plan from the ground up. And not to have anything of the sort – well, that’s Malta.