[Cburkert]

We have flown numerous trips on Air Malta. In November, my wife and I fly to Rome for a connecting flight to Malta. DUe to the profound slowness of the baggage handlers at Rome, we arrived at the Air Malta gate approximately 45 minutes before flight time but the agent had already left the gate. We could not check in and missed the flight. We were forced to spend the night in Rome and missed a day of our vacation. That was not the worst part. Air Malta cancelled our entire reservation and forced us to buy two new round trip tickets. The cost of the replacement tickets was double our original fare! It took Air Malta 6 weeks to even respond to inquiries I sent them via email repeatedly. They denied our request for a refund and were not the least bit concerned with the fact that we were regular customers, even when I advised we would never fly them again if they were not reasonable with us. Their response revealed their ONLY true concern is their profit and throughout my sense was that "Customer Service" is something they have no icomprehension of. I really find their attitude completely out of step with the Maltese people who are warm and caring. This airline is the complete opposite and I would be certain if you have no choice but to fly them, buy comprehesnive flight insurance because if you have a problem, they won't do anything for you.

[lostinlondon]

Sounds like Air Malta were justified in denying boarding since you were late for check-in. I appreciate that it may not be your fault but that is irrelevant to them.
Such unfortunate situation highlights once again the risks of buying (as I assume) separate tickets for a multiple legs journey. If anything happens with the 1st flight to the connecting point, you are on your own. The initial carrier will claim that it fulfilled its contract by transporting you ''within reasonable delay'' to your destination whilst the 2nd carrier will claim that you did not comply with its instructions with regard to check-in deadlines. In this case, it's even worse since neither airlines can be blamed for what looks like a failure on the part of baggage handlers likely to be employed by the airport authorities.
A lesson to be learned...