Yesterday I went to one of only four tube stations that has only one platform.
I thought I remembered the Queen arriving by tube to open the station but increasingly my memory is at fault. In fact the Prince and Princess of Wales opened it in April 1986. I went to Heathrow Terminal 4 tube station. (The other one-platform stations are Chesham, Mill Hill East and Olympia.)
It was BA’s terminal until it moved to T5 in 2008 – I had forgotten that too. Today it serves thirty-five international airlines including Air Malta. You are unlikely to fly Air Malta as it will cease flying at the end of next month. It belongs to the government who wanted to give it a €290 million bung but this sort of state aid breaches EU rules -and Malta doesn’t want to rub the EU up the wrong way – it is a net recipient of almost $600 million a year. So bye bye Air Malta, hello KM Malta Airlines, also state owned. The new airline will adopt new employment contracts, particularly regarding pensions, and will fly to fewer destinations.
A quirk of flying Air Malta is that you can check in online and print a boarding pass at home. I did this yesterday and it took me through security but at the boarding gate I (and most other passengers) had to check in again and get a new boarding pass. WTF? I hope KL Malta reviews this annoying policy. The full flight to Valletta was uneventful and uncomfortable in a cramped seat in the centre of a row; but what do you expect for £60?
The pilot announced we were flying over Palermo and would shortly be landing at Valletta. Albeit an Airbus flies faster, I suppose, than a Second World War bomber, a vivid reminder of what a short stretch of the Mediterranean separates the two islands. For the Italians and Germans operating out of Sicily, Malta was a sitting duck.