Tourism minister denies dodging media after airport press conference

Tourism minister Edward Zammit Lewis has vehemently denied fleeing from the media during a recent press conference.

Following a recent press conference to celebrate Ryanair’s 10-year anniversary, Zammit Lewis left the VIP terminal at the Malta International Airport through a secondary door.

Following the press conference, the minister was seen calling a Labour media journalist and camera crew into an adjoining room for comments, but then left from a secondary door. He had been informed beforehand that journalists would be seeking one-on-one on-camera comments.

Ryanair’s chief commercial officer David O’Brien was left asking “You mean the minister’s left already?” as he prepared to cut a celebratory cake alone.

However, responding to questions in Parliament by Opposition MPs, Zammit Lewis insisted that he didn’t dodge journalists and that ONE was the only media house to have personally approached him one-on-one comments.

“I stayed throughout the entire press conference until they were about to cut the cake, but I had to leave early to go home and pack because I had a flight to catch,” he said. “I spoke to [PBS journalist] Daphne Cassar, who said that she didn’t want a comment from me but rather from O’Brien. Nobody approached me to request a comment, incluidng [Times of Malta journalist] Ivan Camilleri. At the end of the conference, a ONE journalist had asked me for a comment, which we took in an adjoining room because the main room was too noisy.”