The operations of Malta International Airport (MIA) have not been affected by a major outage facing one of the island’s largest telecoms networks, Melita, WhosWho.mt is informed.

Melita on Friday morning reported damage to one of its fibre cables, resulting in no service for its customers in the Southern area of Malta, with MIA being amongst the localities cited as being affected.

However, a spokesperson from the airport explained that as it does not rely on any single network provider, its operations will not be affected.

Ultimately, he explained, for operations to be hit by a network outage, it would need to affect all major network providers on the island, as the airport uses technology called a ‘link balancer’ to create network backups and balance heavy traffic.

Simply, this means that its connectivity demands are spread across several networks, so if one goes down, the others can pick up the slack.

While the airport’s operations are unaffected, the outage is likely to have irked Melita’s customers, in the following localities: Birgu, Birzebbugia, Bormla, Bulebel, Delimara, Fawwara, Fgura, Ghaxaq, Gudja, Hal Far, Kalkara, Kirkop, Kordin, Marsa, Marsascala, Marsaxlokk, Mqabba, Paola, Qajjenza, Qrendi, Safi, Senglea, Smart City, St Lucia, Tarxien, Xghajra, Zabbar, Zejtun and Zurrieq.

Melita said it is working to repair the cable and will keep customers updated, while reminding them that calls to 112 emergency services are designed to work from mobiles throughout any service interruption.