Maleth Aero flight delays (MLT1972 LGW- Barbados 6th January & others) delayed FROM a UK airport

bagand96

Saw this yesterday: Delayed passengers ‘owed £500k’ caught up in row between Maleth and P&O Cruises - Travel Gossip

So Maleth are of the opinion they are owed money from Carnival (P&O) and that when they get paid this, they'll be in a position to pay UK261 claims.  Carnival dispute this.

There's also the following quite detailed statement from Maleth BBC One - The One Show - Maleth Aero / P&O ROR - June 2024

Legally the contractual dispute between Maleth/P&O/Carnival is nothing to do with passenger's UK261 rights, and they should be payed regardless.  However this at least seems to suggest Maleth are willing to do something, and for a small charter airline you can see the problem if they still have monies owing from the very powerful and multi-billion dollar Carnival Corporation.

Some fighting talk from Maleth pointing out exactly what P&O contracted (although they seem to dispute this).  One thing is for sure - P&O made a complete mess of sourcing flights for the Winter 23/24 programme!

daveyjp

Maleth probably can't afford to pay the compensation.

They are using the P&O dispute as a 'look over there' distraction technique, but that's a separate dispute not related to their obligations to pay for delays. 

Any P&O/Maleth dispute could take years to settle.

Alan_Bowen

It is reported today that  P & O Cruises are planning to sue Maleth Aero for $3.3 million. Reading between the lines, it appears the allegations are that Maleth at the last moment demanded more money otherwise the flights would not take off and the cruise line under duress paid up and is now looking to get back the money This gives a flavour of the airline, I see no prospect of anyone ever seeing compensation for delays from the airline itself

Suzycoll

Alan_Bowen said:

It is reported today that  P & O Cruises are planning to sue Maleth Aero for $3.3 million. Reading between the lines, it appears the allegations are that Maleth at the last moment demanded more money otherwise the flights would not take off and the cruise line under duress paid up and is now looking to get back the money This gives a flavour of the airline, I see no prospect of anyone ever seeing compensation for delays from the airline itself

Oh 😮 & meanwhile we are all still waiting for our flight delay compensation! I doubt if  any of the passengers can afford to sue Maleth Air 😡

bagand96

Alan_Bowen said:

It is reported today that  P & O Cruises are planning to sue Maleth Aero for $3.3 million. Reading between the lines, it appears the allegations are that Maleth at the last moment demanded more money otherwise the flights would not take off and the cruise line under duress paid up and is now looking to get back the money This gives a flavour of the airline, I see no prospect of anyone ever seeing compensation for delays from the airline itself

There are clearly contractual disputes between P&O and Maleth and it seems each side feel they had contracted for different levels of service (as detailed by BBC Watchdog link above)

Whilst you might say it gives a "flavour of the airline" I'm not sure either party come off very well here and I'm no more inclined to believe Carnival Corporation are any more the good guys than Maleth are the bad.  P&O got themselves in a desperate situation with nobody to operate their flying programme and it's not too hard to believe they hastily contracted Maleth without full due dilligence.

Carnival vs Maleth is a David vs Goliath situation and I expect Carnival will use their might to litigate Maleth into a corner.  The affected P&O customers will never know the full story and the longer it goes on the less likely it is anyone will see compensation.

Alan_Bowen

It is now over a year since this topic disappeared from the first page of this forum. As far as I can tell, no one issued proceedings and no one got a penny. However, yesterday it was reported that Canada banned Maleth Aero from operating charter flights when it was unable to produce any evidence of liability insurance. An airline with no insurance is not going to last very much longer, so probably time for everyone to close their files and move on. 

Suzycoll

Alan_Bowen said:

It is now over a year since this topic disappeared from the first page of this forum. As far as I can tell, no one issued proceedings and no one got a penny. However, yesterday it was reported that Canada banned Maleth Aero from operating charter flights when it was unable to produce any evidence of liability insurance. An airline with no insurance is not going to last very much longer, so probably time for everyone to close their files and move on. 

Hey Alan

Funnily enough I was just looking at this forum & my original post.

As you said over a year ago

Sadly, I think you are probably right 🤔

I will keep my paperwork & e mails just in case...

bagand96

Alan_Bowen said:

It is now over a year since this topic disappeared from the first page of this forum. As far as I can tell, no one issued proceedings and no one got a penny. However, yesterday it was reported that Canada banned Maleth Aero from operating charter flights when it was unable to produce any evidence of liability insurance. An airline with no insurance is not going to last very much longer, so probably time for everyone to close their files and move on. 

Maleth can't even be considered an operational airline at this point. Website is down, no active aircraft and no recent flights.  The situation in Canada is just housekeeping by the authorities there - there was an existing approval for charter flights and they've suspended it - not as if any flights were going to happen anyway.

Surprised it still exists at all, probably just on the off chance they have a victory in the Carnival legal proceedings.

One of the aircraft is now with another Malta based charter operator and is currently operating out of Birmingham for Jet2 if anyone fancies another ride!