Only Amsterdam is turning a profit as KM Malta bleeds millions

Amsterdam is the only profitable route in KM Malta Airlines’ entire network, while all its other destinations, including London, Rome and Paris, are being operated at a loss, senior company sources have told The Shift.

The national carrier’s financial position is understood to be substantially worse than reported so far. Its losses have surpassed double-digit millions and continue to mount, according to sources familiar with the company’s finances.

The situation undermines the government’s claims that KM Malta would be a leaner, more efficient and commercially sustainable replacement for Air Malta.

The new airline started operating on 31 March 2024 after the government closed Air Malta following decades of losses and failed restructuring efforts. KM Malta retained Air Malta’s fleet of eight aircraft but drastically reduced its network. While its predecessor had flown to as many as 37 destinations, the replacement airline launched with just 17 routes.

The government had said the smaller network would allow management to concentrate the airline’s resources on profitable destinations, increase aircraft utilisation and avoid the politically motivated routes that had contributed to Air Malta’s collapse.

Yet, the strategy is not working, as even some of KM Malta’s busiest and traditionally most important routes are now losing money.

KM sources told The Shift that services to London, Rome and Paris are all loss-making despite their popularity, leaving Amsterdam as the airline’s only profitable route.

The airline is accumulating losses despite also benefiting from public support channelled through the Malta Tourism Authority’s budget, as do several low-cost airlines operating routes to Malta.

So far, neither the government nor the MTA has disclosed how much of the authority’s budget is being used to support KM Malta. This makes it impossible to establish the airline’s full dependence on public funding or whether individual routes would remain commercially viable without that assistance.

This funding, camouflaged as marketing subsidies, is separate from the €350 million committed by the government to establish KM Malta, including €50 million in working capital and some €300 million in aircraft and other assets.

Questions are also being raised about the airline’s payroll.

Although KM Malta employs significantly fewer people than Air Malta did, sources said its total payroll has increased by approximately 30%.

Executive Chairman David Curmi alone receives €21,500 a month, equivalent to €258,000 a year.

Curmi, who has no experience in aviation, led Air Malta during the final years preceding its closure and oversaw the transition to KM Malta before Finance Minister Clyde Caruana placed him at the helm of the taxpayer-funded replacement.

Sources said Curmi and Caruana have no clear strategy to reverse the airline’s deteriorating financial position.

The scale of the problem remains concealed because KM Malta has still not published its first audited accounts.

The accounts were originally expected in October 2025. However, Caruana later told parliament that the airline had been granted an extension until the first quarter of 2026 because its first reporting period covered more than 12 months.

That extended deadline has also passed as the accounts remian hidden.

Neither Finance Minister Caruana nor Curmi has explained why the accounts remain unpublished or said when they will be filed and their  continued absence is preventing taxpayers from scrutinising KM Malta’s income, expenditure, payroll, cash position, subsidies and accumulated losses.

The situation is also raising further doubts over the government’s plan to sell a minority stake in the airline to a strategic private investor. Almost two-and-a-half years after KM Malta started operations, no investor has been announced.