Air Malta fuel debt to Enemed totals €23 million

Air Malta owed the State-owned Enemed €22.8 million for fuel supplies by the end of 2020 as payments to clear the pending balance ground to a halt.

Air Malta is Enemed’s largest debtor with the amount owed representing 51% of what the fuel supplier was owed by debtors in the period between 2014 and 2020.

The information comes from the annual report of the National Audit Office for 2020, which was tabled in parliament last week.

In a review of Enemed’s operations, the NAO established that while in 2019, Air Malta had made payments totalling €30 million, in 2020 the company only settled €9.3 million. And by mid-April 2021, only €1.5 million were paid to clear the pending balance.

The NAO report said that according to Enemed, both parties were in discussion with government “in order to obtain funding to settle its overdue balance”.

Air Malta, like all airlines, sustained major losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when international travel was hit by restrictions.

In October, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana told sister newspaper Illum that he expects the airline to lose between €25 million and €30 million next year. He insisted the scale of losses depends on what happens to the tourism sector as it recovers from the pandemic.

Government is in talks with the European Commission to get clearance for a state aid package to shore up the airline but negotiations have been going on since last year.

The airline’s accounts for the past two years have not been published and Caruana refused a request by Opposition MP Claudio Grech for the airline’s financial estimates to be tabled in parliament.

“The request for Air Malta’s financial estimates concerns information that is commercially sensitive and cannot be met,” Caruana told parliament last week.