Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/405994
SEE PAGE 10 WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION WEDNESDAY • 29 OCTOBER 2014 • ISSUE 388 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY €0.90 Editorial - PAGE 8 Newspaper post Maltese Cross Financial Services clients say MFSA failed to carry out site inspections allowing broker to wipe out €7 million in savings and investments over five years JURGEN BALZAN AIR Malta yesterday announced that it has halved its losses to €16 million as chairperson Maria Mi- callef warned politicians to "hold back " and support the airline in its attempt to survive. The airline's financial results for the year ending March 2014 show that Air Malta registered an opera- tional loss of €12.7 million. Financ- ing costs and discontinued opera- tions led to further losses which reached a total of €16.2 million. These results show that the air- line is off track in its attempts to reach the goals set by the Euro- pean Commission's restructuring programme which started back in 2011 with the aim of returning Air Malta to profitabilit y by 2016. In 2012 the airline halved its loss- es to €40 million but then in the year ending March 2013 its losses were €31 million rather than the €15 million which had been target- ed; and this year when Air Malta was expected to make a €3.2 mil- lion profit it registered the losses of €16.2 million. While admitting that the airline did not achieve the targets set by the restructuring plan, Micallef said that this year's result was "positive" as it halved last year's €31 million losses. "Today the board of directors can officially confirm that the finan- cial year ending March 2014 we did even better, we halved our losses from €31 million to €16 million." Sounding a positive note, Mi- callef added that although the results for the last two financial years are not in line with "the more ambitious restructuring plan," the figures show that "the aggregate financial situation of the airline is improving". She also highlighted the fact that since 2012, the airline has managed to increase revenues by €22 million out of the €32 million it targeted by 2016, however the rationalisation of costs of €24.5 million on annual basis has not been achieved. The only cost saving target achieved to date relates to em- ployee costs, with the airline sav- ing €7.5 million over and above the €6.2 million saved from contract renegotiations. FREE INSIDE The Architect WEDNESDAY ISSUE NO. 66 | OCTOBER 2014 THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE KAMRA TALPERITI Air Malta veers off-track PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD Airline registers €16.2 million loss CONTINUES PAGE 3 China to pay €7.8 million for embassy SEE PAGE 3 'Cross' investors to sue MFSA