A Boeing 737 Max 200 in the colors of Malta Air landed at Luqa Airport for the first time on Tuesday. The 9H-VUC was transferred from Dublin to the Maltese airport and welcomed there by company boss David O'Brien and Minister of Transport Ian Borg.

During the ferry flight, Captain Charles Pace, Director of the Civil Aviation Administration of Malta, was on board. He emphasized that, in his opinion, this type of machine is absolutely safe and is probably the most intensively tested sample of all. In his speech he also addressed the fact that more and more airlines are settling in Malta. For example, the Ryanair Group has two local branches with Malta Air and Lauda Europe. But other airlines, including Corendon, Freebird, Smartlynx and, shortly, Titan Airways, have operating subsidiaries based on the Maltese islands. Every new airline would generate additional jobs in Malta. The background to this is that even if Luqa is not even flown to, certain security-related jobs at the official company headquarters have to be provided for regulatory reasons. Malta Air and Lauda Europe have around 50 office employees in Pieta. Malta Air employs a total of around 3.500 people across Europe, the vast majority of which are flight personnel.

Company boss David O'Brien emphasized that no staff reductions had to be made at the Luqa base due to the corona pandemic. A solution that is supported by both sides has been agreed with the responsible trade union. In this context, he strongly criticized the state aid for Air France-KLM and Lufthansa. “Lufthansa is receiving billions of euros from the German state and is still shedding thousands of employees. I think something's going really wrong, ”said O'Brien. “The island states should be careful what France and Germany want to enforce in terms of short-haul flights and minimum prices. This can have serious consequences, especially for island states that cannot be connected to the mainland or neighboring islands by land ”.

Group airlines have to compete internally for new aircraft

The Ryanair Group has ordered a total of 210 Boeing 737 Max 200s. According to David O'Brien, the flight operations must compete for the allocation of the machines. At the moment, Malta Air will get the lion's share. However, not all machines will have the carrier's own livery. The vast majority will be in the Ryanair colors. The same applies to the Polish sister company Buzz.

Regarding Lauda Europe, David O'Brien emphasized that it is his job to renew the fleet with Airbus planes. He indicated that the chances that Lauda will fly with the A320neo have increased. A few months ago it was initially said that the Boeing 737 Max 200 would be switched to, but shortly thereafter O'Brien denied Aviation Direct corresponding media reports. He emphasized that Lauda Europe had to earn new aircraft within the group and that they were still in intensive talks with Airbus. Tuesday's suggestion that it would be his job to convert the Lauda fleet to new Airbus jets leaves a lot of room for speculation. A merger of Malta Air and Lauda Europe is not planned.

It is also interesting that David O'Brien said on the sidelines of the press conference that intensive work is currently being carried out on an expansion from Malta to the south. This means Africa and in the absence of an OpenSkies agreement you will have to fly under the AL code as Malta Air. Ryanair UK already operates on certain routes under its own flight numbers and Buzz also has this on certain routes for regulatory reasons. Only Ryanair DAC and Lauda Europe currently almost always fly under FR flight numbers. With regard to possible destinations on the African continent, O'Brien gave no further details.