The Ryanair Group would have been offered the loss-making airline Air Malta for sale. However, they have no interest in taking over a "loss-making airline," said CEO Michael O'Leary at a media conference.

Rather, the Irish group sees itself in an excellent position with its existing subsidiary Malta Air and also in a position to quickly take over those routes on which Air Malta could leave gaps. At the same time, however, O'Leary ruled out that routes to "high-price airports" such as London Heathrow would be included.

In the 2022/23 winter flight schedule, Ryanair will be offering 55 destinations from Luqa. From today's perspective, there will be 2023 destinations in the 65 summer flight schedule. O'Leary emphasized that Malta had invested a lot of money in building Malta Air. The aim is to offer the population and tourism an alternative to Air Malta. The manager doesn't really see the state carrier as a competitor and points out that the company itself is the market leader.

“We don't want to threaten Air Malta, we want Air Malta to survive. Competition between airlines is good for consumers and good for tourism in Malta,” said Michael O'Leary. “We have been asked if we want to buy Air Malta. No, we don't want that. We don't need loss-making airlines."

More aircraft in Malta Air Livery and own hangar

There are currently six Boeing 737 Max 200s flying in the Malta Air livery. Michael O'Leary wants to increase the number of these machines to ten. At the same time, the manager emphasizes that planes in the colors of Lauda Europe and Ryanair also land at Luqa Airport. Currently the latter would be in the majority. Both Malta Air and Lauda Europe are Maltese airlines and are based in Pieta, opposite the Marina.

A dedicated maintenance hangar will soon be opened on the Luqa Airport site. Operationally, this will be used jointly by Malta Air and Lauda Europe, but other carriers from the group of companies will also use the services. This is catching up because the competitor Lufthansa Technik has been present in Malta for many years.