The Flughafen Wien subsidiary in Luqa (Malta) is celebrating a special anniversary on Tuesday, as the “new terminal” will be 30 years old. It was built under government control and replaced the aging structures now used for freight.
Colloquially, today's terminal in Malta is still called "new airport". Of course, that is not entirely correct, because only a new terminal building was put into operation. In addition, another apron was built. But the old terminal is still remembered by the older generation and was considered a real impertinence.
There is a reason for this, because the volume of air traffic in Malta has always been within tight limits, but it has increased sharply since the early 1980s. The old Luqa terminal was increasingly decaying and was not designed for the passenger volume at the time. So a new building was needed. This was decided by the government and at the same time the old building was adapted at short notice. The greatest achievement must have been the air conditioning, because there was no such thing before. The contemporary witnesses have correspondingly sweaty memories.
The opening of the current terminal, which has been expanded and redesigned several times over the years, was a major milestone in Maltese aviation. Of course, there was also criticism about the commissioning, because some described the building as an oversized ostentatious structure. They were wrong, because over the years it had to be repeatedly expanded because the number of passengers has increased more than expected in the late 1989s and early 1990s.
Corona also brought Luqa Airport a real total crash in passenger numbers, but it is expected that growth can be resumed in the next few years and the check-in halls will have to be expanded. Incidentally, a possible restart of the old terminal is ruled out, because it was only closed for passengers and then converted for cargo purposes and is still used today. Occasionally, passenger aircraft are parked in front of the building so that passengers can catch a glimpse of it when boarding and disembarking or while traveling on the apron bus.
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