A EUROPEAN airline is due to cease operating by the end of the year it has been announced.
The airline will instead be replaced by a new national carrier, with all staff set to be laid off.
ReutersAir Malta is due to be replaced by the end of this year after an agreement was reached[/caption]
Air Malta has already cut its staff numbers significantly, from more than 1,000 down to around 300.
However, those who lose their jobs will be able to apply to work for the new replacement airline, which will take over “seamlessly” from the old one, according to Air Malta boss, David Curmi.
He told the Times of Malta that the current airline would be replaced after the European Commission blocked the Maltese government’s attempts to save it with a €300million (£265m) cash injection.
He said: “We are nearing the end of long, difficult and complex discussions with the European Commission, which did not want a photocopy of Air Malta.
“The new airline will have its own booking platform and tickets will be sold there.
“The old company will continue operations until the very end when the new airline will take over. That is why we’re anticipating that the transition will be largely seamless.”
He said that the replacement airline was part of a five-year business plan for Malta to finally have a national carrier that “makes business sense”.
He also said the end of this year was the target for the new airline to be up and running and assured people that the service would offer flights to “key cities” and “key airports”.
The move is very similar to the one which saw Alitalia closed down before Italia Trasporto Aereo (ITA) was launched in its place.
It comes after Air Malta continued to make losses following the pandemic.
Curmi has also insisted that the new airline will not have a no-frills approach and will be competitive due to its quality of service, rather than its cheaper prices.
Ryanair have warned that more airlines could vanish in the future, as business continue to recover from Covid-19.
The airline’s CEO Michael O’Leary believes that Europe is entering an “inevitable” post-pandemic period of airline consolidation.
He said that will happen as carriers struggle to compete in the new travel landscape.
As part of that, airlines like easyJet and Wizz Air could be bought out by bigger carriers, as they find it difficult to become profitable.
“We are definitely, post-Covid, entering a four or five-year period of consolidation,” O’Leary told Reuters.
I think it is likely that in the next couple of years easyJet and Wizz (Air) will also be taken out by the legacy carriers.”
O’Leary said he believed the sector in Europe would move towards having four large airlines: Lufthansa, Air France-KLM , IAG and and Ryanair.
Meanwhile, these are the worst airlines for customer service currently operating in the UK.
And these are the airlines with the most delays in the UK last year.
AlamyMore airlines could be taken over by legacy carriers over the next few years, Ryanair have warned[/caption] Read More