Au4882

Sharing a terribly frustrating experience I'm having with Air Malta - a bit of a buyer beware.

I purchased a flexible ticket (refundable) from MLA-LHR that I've been trying to cancel now for 4 weeks with no success.

• There is no website functionality to cancel online
• Social Media (Twitter and Facebook) directs me to call the call center
• Customer Service returned my email, but also directed me to the call center
• The US call center answers, but sends cancellations requests to a voicemail box. I've left 4 voicemails over the last 4 weeks. No returned message. No cancellation.
• This forced me to the International Call Center (in MLA), which is costing me $0.49 per minute to call
  • Call #1 was answered, but she was unable to process the cancelation, as "the system is down"
  • Call #2 a few hours later ended the same as call #1
  • Calls #3-8 resulted in excessive hold times, which I've hung up each time due to excessive calling rates (I've held from 5-20 mins each time).- The International (Malta) call center is barely functional.
  • I'm now on my 8th call
  • At this point, I've probably spent half the ticket price in phone calls

I do have a friend who lives in ZRH who may try to cancel this for me in person at the airport. But should it really come to that?

Probably my best course of action is to dispute this with my CC company.

Just wanted to share a buyer-beware with Air Malta. This has been totally unacceptable -- especially in 2023.

irishguy28

then you really should use Skype. I can't see from here what their rate from the US to Malta is, but it should be much less than that. (You could even enroll for a free first month's subscription, and call Malta as much as you like for a month for no charge)

That should not work. Only the named passenger should be able to cancel a ticket. Your friend should be asked for ID and when they reveal themselves to be someone other than yourself, then the agent should no longer discuss your ticket with them - notwithstanding the reasons why you asked your friend to do this.

This definitely sounds like a rare case of: it would have been better to book via a reputable travel agent.

Good luck, and let us know the resolution!

Au4882

Thanks - yes, I changed to Skype. Still experiencing excessive (>30 min) hold times with no resolution. Am on call #15 presently.

My friend at ZRH was unsuccessful. He was able to have the agent pull up the booking, but said agent was unable to cancel the reservation and directed him to the call center (lol).

Agreed - should have booked this via a TA. I booked a segment MUC-MLA for a few days earlier via the CapitalOne portal (to utilize the travel credit) - and they took care of cancellation for me with no issues.

vantage03

Air Malta is likely to close down any day, and form a new company a la Aliatalia > ITA Airways. Small chance the government will convince the European Commission to let them inject capital but in the meantime they�re operating on a shoestring budget.

I�d only bother with the Malta call centre, so use Skype. If all else fails, initiate a credit card chargeback.

farci

Follow the Air Malta saga in the local newspaper :
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/vi...monday.1058301
This article is very revealing:
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/vi...revenue.927940

hugolover

KM is a bit like LO, in that they would never allow qualified people to get close to it because more than likely they would have to be foreigners and giving them free roam to order the natives around would be unthinkable.

https://timesofmalta.com/articles/vi...rch-31.1058754

Foreigners keep away!

Yes, yes...this is exactly how to make money, full flights :

Their load factors are not even that bad, 74% in 2019, Lufthansa Group was 76% on Europe in 2019.

Perhaps his Mother could handle the sales? I'm sure she can sell every seat.

In the end the only people who will suffer are the Maltese, high fares which are subsidised by the taxpayer. Ryanair are THE carrier to Malta, they carry more pax than KM and fly to more places. All they're doing is making sure the Elite can continue to fly Business Class. If they want to burn money why not give the money to FR to subsidise weaker routes?

YVR Cockroach

Fortunately I've gotten in my flights on a number of EU/European national carriers. Not only KM but also MA and original incarnations of CY, AZ, SN and SR.