Travel & Tourism
Click Air to start operating this month
By MaltaMedia News
Jun 7, 2007 - 4:00:38 PM

Click Air will start operating to Malta twice weekly from this month to October with a capacity of 15,000 passengers both ways. It is estimated that this airline will be carrying this year over 5,000 passengers one way – about 80 per cent of them tourists.

The Minister for Tourism and Culture Francis Zammit Dimech addressed a press conference at the Malta International Airport (MIA) on the occasion of the commencement of Click Air operations from and to Barcelona. He said that adding another low cost airline to the network of airlines operating to our country was good news for our tourism industry.

Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said that if this route proves profitable than we hope to open up further to the Iberian peninsula which is a very important one for us.

Low cost carriers are carrying 44 per cent of all outbound traffic from the United Kingdom and 26 per cent of all outbound travel from Germany. These are our two main core markets. As an island Malta is dependent on air transport. Thus it must tap all means of air transport to maintain its tourism industry.

Last year four low cost carriers started operations to and from Malta. Meridiana is operating flights from Bologna, Italy; Centralwings is operating from Warsaw in Poland; Germanwings from Cologne and Stuttgart in Germany and Ryanair from Luton, Pisa and Dublin. To these should be added British Jet which started its operations earlier carrying over 50,000 passengers from the UK.

On the 25th April Government published a call for proposals for airlines to operate new routes to and from Malta. All four routes were taken up by Ryanair which will be operating from Bremen in Germany as from the 25th September and from Girona in Spain, Bari in Italy, and Stockholm Nykoping in Sweden from the 30th October.

The Minister for Tourism and Culture said that the six low cost carriers that are operating to and from Malta are expected to carry in a whole year over 200,000 passengers. He said that this share of passengers carried by low cost airlines is meant to increase and this could be beneficial for tourism.