August 10, 2006 - AIR MALTA last week last week launched an outsourced IFE offering designed to attract advertising revenue as well as appealing to passengers.

Featuring films, light entertainment and documentaries to be delivered through an overhead broadcast system in a dozen Airbus A320-family aircraft, the service is being supplied under a turnkey contract by Maltese IFE specialist Blue Media Marketing.

“With this initiative we are enhancing services to Air Malta’s clients at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult to operate an airline,” said Maltese industry minister Dr Austin Gatt when the service was announced. “It will lead to cost reductions and additional revenues worth more than $2 million a year.”

The airline is pinning its hopes on ten thirty-second slots to be interspersed with the fixed programming on every flight. They are being offered to advertisers at a monthly rate of $4,500 each.

Air Malta offers scheduled services to around 50 destinations in Europe, North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. It is in the course of a four-and-a-half-year fleet renewal that by next year will see it flying 12 A320-family aircraft with an average age of two and a half years.