Air Malta Wins CAPA Turnaround Award from Airline of the Year

Air Malta won the title of "2018 Recovery Airline" at the prestigious CAPA World Aviation Outlook summit in Berlin.

The Maltese airline has been chosen among the world's airlines for its "innovative strategic change and / or restructuring exercise".

The CAPA Aviation Awards of Excellence are considered the most important awards of strategic excellence in aviation. Among this year's winners in various categories are Qantas Group, WOW Air, CityJet, LEVEL and Jozsef Varadi, Managing Director of Wizz Air.

The award was presented to Charles Mangion, president of Air Malta, at the CAPA Aviation Awards ceremony. Air Malta was selected for its successful transformation from a heavy entity to a loss to a balanced result for the year ended March 2018.

In the announcement announcing the names of the winners, CAPA stated that Air Malta had been profitable for almost 20 years while it was struggling to overcome multiple challenges, including increased competition from low-cost carriers. cost, obsolete labor practices and tensions in the North African market, which have affected its strongest links.

He added that the national airline had accumulated operating losses of more than $ 300 million over the ten-year period ending March 2017. Air Malta has rebuilt its operations with a financially viable business model and a hybrid product that now allows it to compete with low-cost carriers. The transformation included a mindset focused on cost control, increased device utilization, increased staff productivity, and the transition to a hybrid business model to serve the increasingly price-driven industry.

After a period of consolidation, the airline has significantly increased its air links, fleet and passengers in 2018 to continue to support the Maltese economy. Air Malta plans to continue its expansion in 2019, while renewing its current fleet with modern neo A320s and exploiting its new economical hybrid model, while supporting the emergence of Malta as one of the holiday destinations the most dynamic in Europe, added CAPA.