The Malta Independent on Sunday
New Italo-Maltese airline puts first Boeing 737 into service – Medavia starts Palermo-Malta for €60 return
Italian executive plane firm Hermes Aviation, which is registered and has offices in Malta, has recently taken a big step forward and brought a Boeing 737400 with own branding as ‘FlyHermes’ into its fleet.
According to sources, FlyHermes is also planning regular flights to and from nearby Comiso, as well as other Italy to Malta routes. Generally, it might however also be assumed that the firm will try to operate in the subcontractor market (aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance) with this type also being popular with similar operators, e.g. in Spain or some eastern EU countries.
Comiso airport, which is located near Ragusa in Sicily, has seen Ryanair as its first scheduled client with a growing number of routes serving both the Sicilian ethnic community in Italy and other parts of Europe, incoming tourism to this so far not so developed area, and the guest worker market as regards eastern EU countries.
Alitalia return flights between Rome-Fiumicino and Comiso are being sold for €135 including taxes, operating with an Embraer 175 jet on Mondays and Sundays. Alitalia flights from Milano-Linate already operate on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, using an Embraer 190 and demand, especially during August, is already very high. There are also Ryanair flights from Rome-Ciampino and Bergamo.
In addition to these scheduled flights there are also charter flights such as with Primera from Stockholm.
Comiso would certainly be an ‘airbridge’ route from Malta, as pointed out in an article some years ago regarding a potential Ryanair route. However, only if fares are very low (which was not really the case with a shortlived Medavia-operated route last year), with according timings, and one might also be very much on the alert for a potential negative impact on the Air Malta route to Catania and the Virtu Ferries route to Pozzallo, very near to Comiso.
The Hermes aircraft
The specific aircraft was initially delivered to Hapag Lloyd (now TUIfly) of Germany in 1990 and then served with Italian airline BluePanorama from 1998 onwards. It was retired by Blue Panorama last December and returned to the leasing company for parking at Montpellier.
Basically, aircraft of this type and age are available on the market for around $4m. This comparatively low acquisition cost, combined with technical reliability, inexpensive spares and maintenance and a still not that bad fuel economy, makes it an interesting aircraft for charter providers that do not have the plane flying too much every day, or far more during the summer while being idle during winter – hence where capital cost plays a key role. In simple terms, these planes just cost money if they fly, not when they are parked. British Airways is a carrier that currently deploys the B737-400 to Malta on the Gatwick route.
Polish charter airline EnterAir has a financially very well performing mix of older B737-400s used on shorter, more seasonal routes, and new B737-800s, used on longer sectors around the year, thus optimising the use of its assets where both have their advantages.
During the recent technical hitches with its Airbus A319/320s, Air Malta also leased in Boeing 737-400s as substitute aircraft from other European airlines. So it might actually be quite useful to have FlyHermes around, as it means having a fast response time sav- ing delay costs and also positioning flight costs.
For the time being, Air Malta also leased B737-400s in its own fleet, when in 1998 they very successfully formed part of the Avro RJ70 replacement at double capacity (160 seats), first with two examples in 1998 and then for the summer of 1999 with three examples in the fleet, in leased.
By the way, all of Air Malta’s former own B737-300s of 1993 are still marching on in service – one of them (9H-ABT), by the way with UK carrier Jet2 that has now taken up Malta, having joined the fleet after many years of service with Norwegian, after it was phased out by Air Malta to be replaced by the A319/320s.
Medavia-operated Malta-Palermo services for
60 return
The website www.maltafly.it is selling low-cost flights between Palermo and Malta. The route had to be abandoned by Air Malta following the impact of the subsidised parallel flights from nearby Trapani were pushed in, draining the western Sicily to Malta market.
At the same time, for people just heading for Palermo, or the centre, or for Palermitans not wanting to drive to Trapani, the route was indeed missing. As I have repeatedly pointed out, while it might no longer make sense to connect that type of route with an Airbus due to limited volume, a 50-70 seater could make sense, particularly with Air Malta’s strong marketing machine in the background. Air Malta would not operate such a flight with its own planes but outsource this above the basic volume flown with its own planes.
The flights will be operated by one of Medavia’s De HavillandCanada Dash 8-300, which seats 50 passengers.
Apart from point-to-point traffic, the website is also marketing connections with Dubai flights by Emirates from Malta. Thus while Air Malta is not making use of the possibility of connecting niche destinations in the region to Malta with the help of an outsourced turboprop or regional jet operation, Emirates, with just one route to feed into, does – certainly, it is aiming at the ethnic travel between western Sicily and Australia, using Malta as a mini-hub.
So far, the days of operation are Monday and Friday. The flight leaves Malta at 10 am, is scheduled to arrive at 11, then departs Palermo at 11.45 and arrives back in Malta at 12.45 pm. Return flights cost from just €60 upwards, including 15 kilos of free checked luggage.