MAviO 2019

Malta’s largest aviation conference truly outdid itself during 2019. With delegates filling every corner of the Salini Resort hall and over sixty aviation companies and entities represented, the Malta Aviation Outlook consolidated its reputation as Malta’s premier aviation event. It offered delegates unparalleled insight into the often overlooked subject of paper airlines and ACMI operators. During 2019, the board led by CEO Ms Marvic Bugeja,  succeeded in bringing to Malta two top notch foreign speakers – CAPA analyst Richard Maslen and FTI Group CEO Dietmar Gunz. The two speakers underscored the struggles that the Paper Airline industry is facing on the fringes of the European continent. The underlying theme discussed throughout the whole conference was  whether paper airlines still have a role to play within the European network.

The conference was also addressed by Air Malta’s former CEO Joe Galea who compared the idea of a paper airline to that of a restaurant. He drew the parallelism that exists between the two business models. More importantly Joe Galea hinted out at what might help a paper airline survive in today’s ultra-competitive market. He emphasized that such survival strategies should be urgently implemented given the imminent decreasing demand for air travel which will continue to result from the slowdown in the German market and a generally weaker economy. As mentioned earlier Richard Maslen’s in-depth analysis, at how major legacy carriers are giving birth to paper airlines as a marketing ploy to garner an ever bigger share of the market, got the attention of all those present. On a different note, Col. Mark Said (retired) launched his well-researched book BROKEN WINGS. It deals with all the aircraft accidents that happened in Malta from the first flight that took place on the island way back in 1915 till today

The MAviO Conference of 2019 will be remembered for a number of firsts. As a matter of fact MAviO 2019 saw the participation of a number of companies for the very first time. This can be attributed to the hard work put in by CEO Marvic Bugeja, Deputy CEO Riccardo Flask and board members Dr Francesca Galea, Joanne Calleja, Captain Sinclair Portelli and Christine Gatt who worked tirelessly to make sure the meet-up turns out to be a success. Lufthansa Technik Malta, Malta MedAir, Bravo Aviation Technical Services and DF Advocates were among the array of new companies making their debut at MAviO. The move to the new venue was very well received, and the whole team received very positive feedback for the new initiatives implemented in 2019.