In the UK, the media was full of Brexit uncertainty, a longer running and more dramatic story than the Netflix series, “The Crown”. Who needs historical dramas when one is unfolding right before your every eyes?
After a few days in Cardiff, we flew onto Malta, straight into the country’s worst constitutional crisis and political scandal linked to the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
The Times Malta that day was full of news of the ongoing investigation into her death by car bomb, shocking disclosures and images of protests of youths calling for Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to step down immediately. There was news that a money-laundering conference had cancelled, with organisers expressing concerns for the safety of their delegates.
It made me wonder what we would find in Malta, and what we would learn at the CAPA World Aviation Summit, which was being hosted by the Maltese tourism and airport authorities. Malta had been courting CAPA for 10 years, chairman of Air Malta Charles Mangion said.
In the end it felt rather surreal. No mention was made of the political scandal at the event; instead we learnt of the strides that had been made in tourism and aviation in Malta, and how this island nation, conquered so many times in history, had fought valiantly for its share of the tourism and aviation pie. Air Malta, which celebrates its 45rh anniversary, has grown from flying 50,000 passengers in its first year to two million. Visitors now spend 18.6m room nights in Malta.
The focus was on the environment which chairman emeritus of CAPA, Peter Harbison, called “the single biggest issue confronting aviation” and he called it a “transformational decade”. In Madrid, meanwhile, thousands of protestors gathered at the COP25 Summit, led by teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, who made a three-week journey on catamaran to get there because, of course, she couldn’t fly.
Harbison said airlines had become the “easy target” of the “climate emergency”, now endorsed by the EU, and which started as “a grassroots movement, led by children; this has never seen before”.
“We are soft targets and easily disrupted,” he said. Ironically, aviation is only a small part of the problem, compared to other industries such as fashion which is responsible for 10% of global greenhouse green emissions.
However blaming one another was not the solution, he argued, nor was making self-serving statements and he cited examples such as RyanAir declaring it has the lowest emission per passenger kilometre, half those of full service carriers, or Lufthansa saying low cost airlines were bad for the environment.
Individual actions such as Easyjet saying it is offsetting carbon emissions from the fuel used for every single flight, or Wizz Air banning business class for any flight under five hours will not be as powerful as collective action, he said. “If airlines don’t get their act together, governments will regulate to force behavioural change.”
Amid the climate debate, he said, important facts were being ignored – that travel and tourism account for 65m jobs, of which aviation accounts for 10.2m – and the industry needed to present a collective face and case.
He predicted that as a result of the flight shaming movement, governments will impose emission taxes, there would be pressure for shorthaul flights to be replaced by surface travel and it will have a bigger impact on low cost airlines. Other measures could include a levy on air miles and a ban on frequent flyer programmes which would give airlines financial as well as non-financial challenges.
From airBaltic to Air Serbia, every airline in Europe, whatever the size, is taking this issue seriously. While the impact has been most severe in Sweden, which has seen the steepest drop in air travel, the feeling is it will spread through Europe, but less so in the US, Middle East and Asia, although Steven Greenway, CEO of Swoop, Canada’s ultra low cost airline, said it would be folly to think it will not do so over time and that airlines have to be doing what they can now to be sustainable.
CEO of airBaltic, Martin Gauss, said it was investing in fleet renewal, electric engines and research in bio-fuels and its moves would result in a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
However he said one single move – the single European sky “which has been talked about for as long as I’ve worked in the industry, 27 years” – would remove 10% of emissions. Add this to fleet renewal’s 20% and “you see that’s how easy it is”.
It was good to see that amid the gloom and doom facing aviation, one airline executive managed to keep his sense of humour. Jiri Marek, CEO of Air Serbia, jested that “some markets have to fight for our fair share of carbon dioxide” and “think of the service we do for smokers – we put four billion people in the air and there’s no smoking. If we put them on ground, they smoke. It’s a service to the health of people and the environment”.
Jesting aside, he said Air Serbia, in its move from state-owned to hybrid, had achieved a turnaround by October and recorded 80% load factor. “People thought it was a joke when we said we wanted to achieve that, but we spent the whole summer believing in it and executing.”
But there’s more than the environment and politics plaguing Europe currently. I am now on an Air Malta flight to Paris which is in the midst of the worst strikes since the early ‘90s. Friends not living in Paris have advised me to go somewhere else, however friends in Paris have urged me not to, saying things are normal on the ground – other than public transport not working – and if I just wanted to stay in the city and walk around, I will be fine.
Let’s see.
Yesterday, I walked through Valletta, the UNESCO World Heritage city of Malta, and found it bustling with normal life – tourists like me soaking in the history and charm of a place whose narrow streets are littered with secrets and stories of the past, and residents going about their daily lives.
There were no signs of protests or public disturbances. I only saw one small gathering of youths carrying placards but they looked more like they were on a school outing than a protest against the current government.
Last night, I visited Mdina and had the most magical experience of my life inside “The Silent City”. By night, there are few people about and with the city-within-a-fortress lit only by lamp light and a half-moon, I felt like at one moment, I was in the middle of a film set and at another, passing though the catacombs of time.
After one of the best Italian meals we’ve ever had at Coogi’s, a restaurant set inside a restored Arab townhouse, and a not-so-fluffy but oh-so-creamy strawberry meringue at Fontenella Tea Gardens, we walked to St Paul’s Cathedral.
Drawn in by the haunting music, we ventured in and found the Malta Military Band in full swing, entertaining a congregation of well-dressed, well-heeled Maltese dignitaries. It was their annual charity concert and a security guard whispered to us that the embattled Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was in attendance.
In this house of spirituality, it seemed Malta was united that night, and welcoming of everyone, including two women from Asia (“are you from Japan?”) who had strolled in from the cold to admire one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe and then found themselves in the middle of one of the most glorious concerts ever.
It is moments like these that remind you why we travel – never mind political uncertainty and social unrest – to experience the unexpected and magical so that you never lose sight of the fact that this moment too will pass, but St Paul’s Cathedral, built in the 19th century, will still be standing.