Air Malta ranks well amongst European airline service levels
VALLETTA, Malta (di-ve news) -- August 23, 2006 -- 1055CEST--Air Malta obtained good results between April and June this year when compared to Europe's major airlines, both in terms of baggage handling and in terms of flight regularity. Figures published by the Association of European Airlines (AEA), which brings together 31 major airlines and has been the trusted voice of the European airline industry for over 50 years, rank Malta's national airline among the top three performers. With only 3.5 bags mislaid per thousand passengers over the three month period, Air Malta ranked second among the 22 affiliate airlines that provided baggage data, closely following the top performer Turkish Airlines which mislaid 3.4 bags per thousand passengers. Large carriers such as British Airways and Air France had an unimpressive performance as they placed among the last in the rankings, partly due to the large volumes of passengers they carry. In terms of flight regularity, which is a measure of flights that actually took off, Air Malta has an almost perfect record with 99.9 per cent. It ranked third amongst 26 airlines which submitted their data, with only Icelandair and Tarom Romanian Airlines managing better. The figures however show that Malta's flag carrier lacked in terms of punctuality. With 74.8 per cent on-time arrivals and 76.9 on-time departures, Air Malta ranked 19th and 21st among 26 airlines respectively. Overall, the punctuality and baggage delivery performance of airlines in the AEA has deteriorated slightly since the same period last year. Most low-cost airlines were not included in the statistics.
VALLETTA, Malta (di-ve news) -- August 23, 2006 -- 1055CEST--Air Malta obtained good results between April and June this year when compared to Europe's major airlines, both in terms of baggage handling and in terms of flight regularity. Figures published by the Association of European Airlines (AEA), which brings together 31 major airlines and has been the trusted voice of the European airline industry for over 50 years, rank Malta's national airline among the top three performers. With only 3.5 bags mislaid per thousand passengers over the three month period, Air Malta ranked second among the 22 affiliate airlines that provided baggage data, closely following the top performer Turkish Airlines which mislaid 3.4 bags per thousand passengers. Large carriers such as British Airways and Air France had an unimpressive performance as they placed among the last in the rankings, partly due to the large volumes of passengers they carry. In terms of flight regularity, which is a measure of flights that actually took off, Air Malta has an almost perfect record with 99.9 per cent. It ranked third amongst 26 airlines which submitted their data, with only Icelandair and Tarom Romanian Airlines managing better. The figures however show that Malta's flag carrier lacked in terms of punctuality. With 74.8 per cent on-time arrivals and 76.9 on-time departures, Air Malta ranked 19th and 21st among 26 airlines respectively. Overall, the punctuality and baggage delivery performance of airlines in the AEA has deteriorated slightly since the same period last year. Most low-cost airlines were not included in the statistics.