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Charlot Zahra
National airline Air Malta is expecting to carry an additional 25,000 passengers this summer with the introduction of new scheduled flights to Liverpool and Venice, Business Today has learnt.
“We are forecasting that through the introduction of Liverpool and Venice, Air Malta will bring over 25,000 additional tourists to Malta this summer,” a spokesperson for the national airline said.
Explaining the rationale behind the decision, the spokesperson said: “Research undertaken by Air Malta shows that there is market potential for a scheduled operation to/from Liverpool and Venice.
“This is the first time that these routes have been introduced as a scheduled operation, although over the years they have operated a number of times as charters,” the spokesperson said.
Air Malta is flying to Liverpool twice a week on Mondays and Fridays, while the flights to Venice are on Mondays and Fridays too.
In addition to the new scheduled flights, AirMalta will be operating charter flights to Ronchi dei Legionari in Northern Italy and Timisoara in Romania this Summer, which will carry additional passengers.
This will provide an added boost to the tourist figures which have already shown a slight improvement over last year’s disastrous figures.
National Statistics Office (NSO) figures for the first five months of this year show that 384,380 tourists came to Malta during that period, an increase of 6 per cent over the same period the previous year.
This growth was primarily attributable to an increase in holiday visits, mainly from the Scandinavian, Irish, Italian and British markets as a direct effect of low-cost airlines. Decreases were recorded in respect of the French, Dutch, Austrian and Belgian markets. |
