It seemed so nice. The Apeldoorn 17-year-old Daan Karssen and Renzo Bouwman were allowed by airline Air Malta to rebook the missed flight from July without extra costs. The two queued for hours and the plane eventually took off without them. Out of leniency, Air Malta came to the rescue. But Air Malta suddenly seems to have flown. There is no more response. And so it seems that the two can whistle their money after all.
Despite the fact that they were not necessarily very happy with the promise at first, as the flight was reimbursed but not for the rest of the holiday, the boys decided to contact Air Malta. The e-mail address of the contact person there, Stephen Gauci, was known to the Stentor and Gauci then requested that the boys e-mail him.
Daan and Renzo sent an e-mail shortly after the commitment on August 9, with their story and that they will contact you about the offer. An automatic e-mail will come back fairly quickly that the e-mail has been blocked. We at the Stentor are also making an attempt. This is followed by the same automatic mail.
Prolonged silence
But we’re not giving up. At the time, we made the first contact via chat on Facebook. There was a very quick response to our question who we could approach with our questions for the first article. But now it is eerily silent. Where they used to be so benevolent, and so they made the commitment within a day of the first contact, there is now suddenly no contact at all. Calling also does nothing: the phone continues to ring, but there is no answer.
After an online search we find several articles about the fact that Stephen Gauci is leaving Air Malta after 27 years. That could explain the strange e-mail, probably his mailbox has now been closed. But even then, in general someone should take over his work, you would say. We spend another email on it, via the contact form where you can click on ‘media’ as subject. ‘Case received’ is the mail that automatically follows, but even after this it remains silent.
Fatty sausage
Daan and Renzo don’t really believe in it anymore. ,,I’m afraid this won’t work anymore”, says Daan. “We still wanted to go in the summer holidays next year. We then have to book the accommodation again, but that’s the way it is, at least we had a free flight. Otherwise you will quickly pay around 300 to 400 euros per person.”
Daan’s mother, Joyce Karssen, is angry. “You can’t do this, can you? First offer a fat sausage and then finally let you know nothing more. This is not even a small airline, so if someone leaves you just have replacements for that, right?” She has also lost faith that it will be okay. “We’ve been working for over a month. In principle, this could be arranged this way, you would think.”
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