The Air Malta 2023 Summer schedule has been designed to operate with
eight aircraft units, all of which are fully crewed with the required number
of pilots and cabin crew.
Air Malta currently has one of its own aircraft in heavy maintenance through
until mid-May 2023.
Air Malta has planned to take delivery of two A320neo aircraft in early
2023. During this transition period of aircraft moving in and out of its fleet,
it has been necessary to wet-lease two alternative aircraft to cover the
scheduled flying.
One of these wet-leased aircraft experienced a technical issue on the
morning of Sunday 9th April, which resulted in it being withdrawn from
service. Due to it being the peak Easter weekend, it was not possible to
source a replacement aircraft from elsewhere, at such short timescales.
This shortage of one aircraft in the flying program unfortunately resulted in
significant delays to the Zurich service on Sunday 09th April and also the
Rome and Brussels services on Monday 10th April as well as the London
Gatwick service on Tuesday 11th April.
During Summer 2023 Air Malta will operate a very intense and expanded
flying program of 155 weekly return direct services to 23 destinations. The
withdrawal of an aircraft from the fleet for any period of time will have a
knock-on effect on the rest of the flying program.
At no point in time were the disruptions over Easter caused by either a shortage of pilots or cabin crew as reported in certain sections of the media. Air Malta has the correct flight deck and cabin crew complement to operate its entire Summer 2023 program.
Air Malta would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to its
customers during this very busy holiday period and is working hard to rectify
the situation.
File photo
