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16.07.2020 3 NEWS FROM PAGE 1 Asked whether he would consider a leadership contest, Delia said he would not be ruling out anything, "in the best interest of the party". Insisting there is no mechanism within the party statute which allows for his removal, Delia said he still had to shoulder the responsibility of the messages sent by the parliamentary group and executive committee. "I am considering everything which is of benefit to the party, but you have to compare the messages sent by the parliamentary group and the execu- tive committee with that of the party members," Delia said. "is is not something which you decide overnight, but I find it difficult to understand how I can ignore the strong vote of the party members, or the second strong vote of the council members," he said, referring to the 2019 vote. Reacting to Louis Galea's statement, Delia insisted he was not abusing of the card-holding members' vote. Louis Galea turned his back on the PN leader, calling on him to resign af- ter losing another confidence vote in the party's executive committee, em- phasising that it was totally wrong for Delia to devalue party organs and say that such votes with a clear majority have no consequence "I don't know of any democratic country where a political leader loses the confidence of the majority of his MPs and his national executive, and the leader does not choose the obvi- ous and honourable path and paves the way for a change in governance," Galea said. Delia said it was the people who ex- pressed a lack of confidence in him- self who were abusing of the mem- bers' votes, insisting they were the ones not respecting party structures. PAUL COCKS THE Nationalist Party's new statute ap- proved just under a month ago could pre- clude any chance of holding a leadership contest, before the next general election. e party's beleaguered leader Adrian Delia on Tuesday lost a second motion of no-con- fidence in the national executive, after first losing the confidence of 16 of his 28 MPs. Delia, elected by paid-up members in the first ever election of its type during the PN's convention of 2017, is insisting the confidence motions have no consequence whatsoever. But his opponents might still present a motion of no-confidence – as opposed to a motion of confidence – in a bid to override the new statute's two-year preclusion on the 2019 motion that Delia had survived in the party's General Council, which groups the party's delegates. Additionally, the new statute's rules on electing a party leader only come into effect after the next general election, leaving no other recourse for members to try and force an unrepentant Delia to a leadership ballot if that were possible. Article 89, which is suspended until after the next general election, deals with the elec- tion of the party leader, which according to insiders who spoke to MaltaToday, means the PN could be unable to force a leadership contest until after the next general election. e General Council can only be convened once the signatures of at least 200 members of the same council are collected and present- ed to its chair: any motion for a vote of confi- dence or no-confidence in Delia will need the approval of the Council's simple majority. If hypothetically, Delia would lose a vote of confidence in the General Council – the third such repudiation of the PN leader – the party appears to have no mechanism in place regulating the election of a new leader, not unless the statute is reviewed again or a dif- ferent interpretation is delivered by the Gen- eral Council. It seems that unless Delia steps down of his own volition, there can be no recourse for his opponents to force Delia into an early leader- ship contest. Only if Delia loses a motion of no-con- fidence in the General Council, will he be forced to vacate the position. e next step would be to call a new leadership election in three months; except that this article, 89(2), is suspended until the next general election. is is bound to leave the PN's administra- tion in turmoil as it prepares to contemplate a new no-confidence motion presented to the chair of the General Council, a scenario that could force it to interpret the new stat- ute's restricting clauses. Further internal debate surrounds the pos- sibility of Delia choose to resign or lose an- other confidence motion, but attempting to contest the leadership once again. In that case, Delia's candidature may still not be automatic, because the new statute demands a due diligence exercise on any can- didate's "employment, profession and busi- ness interests" by an eight-member internal committee And it remains unclear whether it is appli- cable to the election of a new party leader. is rule, Article 90 of the statute, also falls under the purview of Article 172 (3), which suspends Articles 89 to 99 until after the next general election. New PN statute could leave Delia unchallenged until next election Delia says he will not ignore those who supported him Adrian Delia FROM PAGE 1 Sources in the company said that bookings for August cur- rently stand at 45% of seat ca- pacity, with 29% of seat capacity in September already booked. But with the airline using only three of its 10 aircraft, Air Malta is actually currently filling only around 16% of seats, when com- pared to the summer of 2019. e sources said the company was still forecasting not return- ing to 2019 levels of passengers anytime before summer 2022, as people return to air travel following restrictions imposed to combat the spread of coro- navirus. In June, Air Malta laid off 69 pilots after talks with the pilots' union on measures to avoid redundancies in order to safeguard the company's ongo- ing sustainability and viability, failed. e move came after a pro- tracted standoff between the airline's management and pilots after the latter refused to ac- cept a social wage of €1,200 per month in the wake of the COV- ID-19 crisis. After the redundancies were confirmed, economy minister Silvio Schembri had told Malta- Today that the airline would fo- cus on servicing its core routes. "Air Malta will be able to com- fortably operate five planes and ensure that we serve our core routes until the end of the year," he had said. "We must focus on revitalising our tourist industry, this is an exceptional moment and we must rise to the occa- sion. It will be hard but we will succeed." But even those plans to oper- ate five aircraft have had to be revised as low passenger book- ing numbers would make oper- ating more than three aircraft economically unsound. Air Malta operates a fleet of ten Airbus A320 family aircraft: one A319-112, six A320-214 and three A320-251N 'Neo' air- craft. Aviation industry sources told BusinessToday that the airline was probably using the three Neo versions, since these provided exceedingly higher fuel savings over the standard A320s, although the A319 could possibly be in operation on the shorter routes. After commercial operations at Malta International Airport ceased for three months, Air Malta commenced its summer schedule on 1 July, connecting Malta to 22 destinations within Europe. Air Malta flights to Rome, Lyon and Marseille joined the previously announced flights to Catania, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Vienna, Zu- rich, Geneva, and Prague. And as of yesterday, the air- line also started operations to Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, London Heathrow, Lisbon, Ma- drid, Palermo, Paris Charles De Gaulle and Orly. In August, Air Malta will also be restarting flights to and from Manchester. Air Malta to fill 60% of seats by August

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