Have P&O improved their flights to Malta?

[bassman67]

When we booked a fly cruise to the Med on Oceana in 2017, the flight out was horrendous. Being used to bonded flights to the Caribbean, we were dismayed to find that we were sharing a Thomas Cook charter with Thomas Cook holidaymakers. This meant we had to collect our luggage in Malta and find the coaches to the ship. The airport was completely overwhelmed with too many arrivals at once and the P&O assistance did not materialise. Together with major itinerary changes and a poor, tired ship it put us off cruising with P&O. After 4 years I've decided to do another fly-cruise on Azura in 2021, so I'm hoping that in the intervening years, P&O have got their act together and sorted out the "fly" part of the cruise. My fellow travellers comments on their experiences in this matter would be appreciated. As an aside I can recommend CMV's Columbus and the Marella Discovery. A different experience from P&O, but just as enjoyable.

[Kendhni]

Last year we flew out to Malta with Jet2 (shared with other holiday makers going to Malta). First time we have flown with them the plane was fine and the cabin crew were great, in fact, Vincent, our cabin steward was the hardest working cabin steward I have ever come across on any flight. Overall the flight was what I expected from a non-long haul European flight.

The airport was busy but there were P&O reps every few yards directing people to the buses. The transfer was uneventful and when we got to the port there were long queues, but they moved quickly - I think it took us about 15-20minutes to get our boarding passes.

We had itinerary changes due to a bad weather front in the Med. If we had have stuck with the original plan we would have effectively had bad weather for the entire second week. However the captain chose to reverse our itinerary which meant we sailed south of the weather front and had great weather every day (the only time we had bad weather was one night as the ship sailed through it to get to the good weather). Sadly I heard one person having a real go about how her holiday had been ruined - but you always get one.

[Meg 50]

we did a fly cruise in 2017 too - and had no probs - other than booking what we thought was a front row seat, then finding it was the front P&O row rather than plane front row.... but that was our fault, not theirs.
Yes we had to collect our own baggage to take to the coach, but at least we knew it had arrived.

on the way back the airport was heaving - again not P&O's fault, they had held us back on the ship as long as possible.

[bassman67]

I suppose that sailing from the UK, be it Southampton or Tilbury, will always be less stressful than fly-cruising. It's just a question of what we, as individuals are prepared to compromise to reach our chosen destinations. To the airline industry, we will always be no more that "self-loading cargo" and we'll have to accept being treated accordingly. I suppose I should remember that the ship is my holiday hotel and the flight there and back is no more than a necessary evil that has to be endured.

[allatc]

We did the P&O fly cruise from Malta last year. Flight was on the sadly no more Thomas Cook airline. It was shared with non cruising holidaymakers.
We had to collect our baggage from the carousel and get to the coaches. As Kendhni has said there were P&O reps every few yards.
We had pre-booked our plane seats directly with the airline. You can (could) do this several weeks before P&O notified us of that option.
I understand that passengers on Tui flights get their baggage taken straight to the ship but you need to check if this is still the case.
My only gripe was that the flight was 6 a.m. which meant leaving home at 2.30am. Did consider an overnight in an airport hotel but since that would still have meant getting up at 3am decided it wasn't worth it.

[david63]

Never done a fly cruise to Malta but the airport at Malta has always been a nightmare - even going back 40 years

[allatc]

Never done a fly cruise to Malta but the airport at Malta has always been a nightmare - even going back 40 years

We got through Malta airport quite quickly both arriving and departing although our return flight was delayed by 40 minutes or so.