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WEDNESDAY EDITION
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WEDNESDAY • 15 APRIL 2020 • ISSUE 683 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY
EDITORIAL • PAGE 11
PAGE 2
CORONAVIRUS
Coronavirus Medavia grounds
fleet, fires pilots and cabin crew
Maltese economy to shrink by 2.8%
in pandemic year, least decline in EU
PAUL COCKS
PILOTS, cabin crew and engineers
have been laid off by Medavia (Med-
iterranean Aviation Co. Ltd.), which
is blaming the restrictions on air
travel introduced by the govern-
ment as response to the COVID-19
pandemic, despite having lucrative
contracts in place – and still oper-
ating – with the United Nation's
World Food Programme.
Even more worryingly, a four-men
crew stationed in Juba, the capital
city of South Sudan, with one of the
company's Dash-8 aircraft, has now
been left stranded there, with no WFP
operational license and no way to get
out of the country, which has closed
its borders in response
to coronavirus.
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Nine new cases
bring local
total to 393
Air Malta
pilots
reaping
what they
sowed,
airline says
Medavia's Dash 8-100
MATTHEW VELLA
MALTA will endure a contrac-
tion in gross domestic product
of -2.8%, according to a financial
model published by the Inter-
national Monetary Fund – the
smallest impact among eurozone
countries.
But the buoyant Maltese econo-
my can be expected to grow by 7%
in 2021, as economic activity nor-
malises, one of the highest rates
bar the Baltic countries' projected
recovery rates.
According to the IMF's most
recent publication, Malta's cur-
rent 4.3% final quarter economic
growth in 2019, will be -3.8% in
the same quarter in 2020, but then
possibly normalising
to 9% in the same
quarter in 2021.
MATTHEW VELLA
AIR Malta has accused pilots union
ALPA of having refused to discuss the
financial implications of the COVID-19
pandemic on the airline, by repeated-
ly dismissing offers to
reach an agreement.
