Ryanair adds six new routes to Malta’s winter schedule
Ryanair adds six new routes to Malta’s winter schedule – and Għawdxonjin are smiling widest
Ryanair’s announcement on Tuesday that it will plant six new winter routes on Malta’s departure board is more than an airline spreadsheet exercise; it is a lifeline for village band clubs, a boost for Gozo’s silent winter guesthouses, and a vote of confidence in the islands’ off-season soul. Starting 29 October, Maltese travellers will be able to wake up at home and fall asleep in Kraków, Tromsø, Aarhus, Cluj-Napoca, Tangier or Marrakesh – all without the usual summer-price sting.
The routes will operate between one and three times weekly until March, using Malta International Airport as a southern pivot for 250,000 seats the Irish carrier swears it will “price like a bus ticket”. For a country that has watched winter airlift shrink to mainly Heathrow and Rome shuttles, the expansion feels almost rebellious. “Finally, we’re not just a summer fling,” quipped Clayton Bartolo, the tourism minister, at a press call held inside the airport’s vintage hangar, itself a relic of the 1940s RAF days when Malta was the aircraft carrier of the Med.
Local context matters. Malta’s tourism model has long been a high-summer monoculture: 2.1 million visitors in July–September 2023 versus 430,000 in January–March. That imbalance empties the pockets of everyone from Mellieħa farmhouses to Valletta wine-bar waiters who rely on tips to pay January rent. Ryanair’s winter offensive, therefore, lands like manna in months when village feasts are boxed up and the sea is too sharp for even the hardiest Gozitan grandfather.
Gozo, in particular, stands to gain. The new Danish link to Aarhus (Tuesdays and Saturdays) is already being plugged by the Gozo Tourism Association as “the Viking route”. Director Paul Scicluna jokes that the Scandinavians “actually like our green winters – they call it ‘mild’ while we’re shivering in 15 °C”. Three Gozitan farmhouses have already reported post-announcement bookings from Danish cycling clubs planning January training camps, bringing hope that the sister island’s eerily empty squares might echo with foreign chatter again.
Cultural ripples are just as tantalising. The Kraków service (three weekly) opens the door for Polish pilgrims to retrace St John Paul II’s 1990 footsteps at the Mellieħa shrine, while Maltese students can weekend in Poland for the price of a Paceville bar tab. Meanwhile, the twin Moroccan routes – Tangier on Mondays and Thursdays, Marrakesh on Wednesdays and Sundays – promise tagine-for-pastizzi exchanges. “We’re already planning a Moroccan spice night at the Valletta community centre,” reveals Omar Farrugia, who runs migrant-integration NGO Integra. “If the planes land, the people mix, and the island grows a little wider.”
Not everyone is clapping. Air Malta’s administrators, still negotiating a €290 million state-rescue package, privately grumble that Ryanair’s “predatory” timing undercuts their own winter sale. Yet even unionists concede the national carrier no longer has the metal to mount such adventurous routes. “We’d need another fleet to reach Tromsø,” one pilot shrugged, referring to the Norwegian Arctic city now linked twice weekly – perfect for Northern-Lights chasers who once had to route through Oslo.
Environmentalists worry the expansion encourages weekend hyper-mobility. “A €19 ticket externalises the true carbon cost,” warns local activist Suzanne Maas. Yet Ryanair counters that its 737-8200 “Gamechanger” fleet emits 16% less CO₂ than legacy jets, and that Malta’s geographic position allows point-to-point travel without connecting hubs. The debate will rage, but for now the court of public opinion – at least the one that meets in village band clubs – is squarely on the airline’s side.
Look beyond the press-release superlatives and the real winners are ordinary Maltese families who can finally afford a half-term break. Miriam Pace, a teacher from Żejtun, has already booked three days in Cluj-Napoca for her twin sons’ December birthday. “Flights were €48 return each – cheaper than the ferry to Sicily,” she laughs. Multiply that by thousands and winter starts to look less like a sentence to be endured and more like a continent to be explored.
Conclusion: In a winter when heating bills are forecast to outstrip rent, the gift of affordable escape routes is also a gift to staying solvent. Ryanair’s six new threads stitch Malta into the off-season fabric of Europe and North Africa, promising fuller guesthouses, busier bars, and a cultural cross-pollination that money can’t usually buy at Christmas. If the planes land on time and the price stays right, the islands might finally shake off their seasonal hibernation – one €19 ticket at a time.
