Around 6,000 Air Malta customers who were members of the now-defunct airline’s loyalty programme Flypass, will receive cash when they close their account, adding to the national airline’s closure costs.
The Shift is informed that Flypass members were notified that their unused points (Kmiles) accumulated over the years will not be transferred to the new national airline, KM Malta Airlines.
Instead, they were asked to complete a declaration form to receive financial compensation while agreeing to close their account.
Air Malta’s frequent flyers were previously awarded points, known as Kmiles, through the Flypass program based on the number of trips they took. These points made them eligible for discounts, including free flights.
Similar loyalty programs are a standard in the airline industry.
Government sources have told The Shift that if all eligible people make a formal claim, the Ministry of Finance is expected to pay around €1.7 million in Flypass compensation.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana confirmed this in Parliament, telling PN MP Chris Said that the government has already paid €882,000 in reimbursement to Flypass members who filed a claim.
The sources also said that during negotiations with Brussels, Minister Caruana and former Air Malta chairman David Curmi, who now holds the same position at KM Malta Airways, insisted that the Flypass scheme should be transferred to the new airline.
Still, the European Commission rejected their request, as it would violate EU competition rules.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana is currently withholding information on the amount of money taxpayers forked out on the closure of Air Malta and creating a new identical airline. The costs are expected to exceed €300 million.
Tens of millions of euro are being paid out in compensation to staff, particularly pilots and cabin crew, because of the early retirement schemes negotiated by disgraced former minister Konrad Mizzi a few years ago, which hastened Air Malta’s demise.
Mizzi’s advisor when drafting these schemes was Robert Abela, now Prime Minister, who was employed as a lawyer to assist the disgraced former minister.
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Does this mean that those selected government officials who travel frequently to and from Malta on the account of the taxpayer will now get a bonus payment for the total flypass points that they did not use? If so, this is a disgrace and an insult to the taxpayer.
More confirmation that Robert Abela is totally incompetent and a liability to the country. He has similar abilities to the other Master of Doom, Mizzi who had the kiss of death applied to everything he was responsible for.
Malta will never recover from the debt and shame achieved by these imbeciles which with every day that passes exposes the country to future severe financial recovery processes by the EU and IMF.
No worries.
They will still receive their ‘privileged’ generous parliamentary pension, for their “sterling service” to the nation….over and above the shamelessly juicy “loss of office” grant!