Malta is a beautiful historic island off the coast of Europe. The Azure Window which collapsed in 2017 featured in Season 1 of Games of Thrones. Air Malta, the flag carrier of Malta, has a fleet of 9 Airbus A320 family aircraft.
Malta Beach Source: The Telegraph
Recently, the Tourism minister of Malta outlined a rather ambitious plan for Air Malta’s long-haul growth. According to him, Mumbai, New York and Toronto are on the cards. These would take 3-4 years to materialise. Air Malta is considering ordering the new A321LR or even the yet to be launched A321XLR for these routes.
Air Malta’s ambitious plans
Mumbai to Malta is 3710 miles and is somewhat within the range of A321LR. New York to Malta, on the other hand, is 4599 miles long. This route is not within the scope of A321LR. Toronto to Malta is the farthest at 4761 miles. The thought itself is foxing. Malta received 45k tourists from North America as opposed to just 4k Indian tourists. How will Air Malta manage to operate even seasonal flights from Mumbai to Malta with these tourist numbers?
Air France already connects Malta (codeshare with Air Malta), Lufthansa, Emirates, Turkish Airlines and soon by Qatar Airways apart from other carriers.
They will carry out due diligence of the routes, and I hope they do that. It is a way too ambitious plan especially Malta to Mumbai. I don’t think it will ever materialise.
What do you think of Air Malta’s ambitious plans?
It’s really a route development question, and it depends on continued growth in outbound travel from India, and marketing of Malta as a destination. It would be a daunting challenge, but it could eventually succeed…after many many rounds of painful losses.
Cobalt Air of Cyprus was thinking of following a similar strategy to eventually fly LCA-BOM-LCA, and I thought that would have a better chance. However…Cobalt Air IIRC is out of business now.
IndiGo would be a good candidate to try ATH, LCA, or CAI with the 321neo, but this seems unlikely now that they are planning a comprehensive partnership with Turkish.