Updated at 6.40pm with MIA statement
European air travellers faced mass disruption on Tuesday with around half of all flights at risk of delays following a technical problem at Eurocontrol, the agency in charge of the continent's skies.
Several of the EU's biggest airports, including Amsterdam's Schiphol, warned of problems and advised passengers to check on their flights because of the computer breakdown.
"Today 29,500 flights were expected in the European network. Approximately half of those could have some delay as a result of the system outage," said a statement from Eurocontrol.
However, the chief operating officer at Malta Air Traffic Services, Robert Sant, told the Times of Malta that so far all flights to and from Malta were operating normally.
"We are closely monitoring the situation and it is not yet clear whether there will be any impact later on. We understand that the problem in the slot computer had been identified and resolved at around 4.20pm Malta-time but it will clearly take some time for the situation to get back to normal because of the knock-on effect.
"You would expect that disruption on this scale might take till tomorrow morning to sort out," he said.
Malta International Airport advised passengers to check the flight information page on maltairport.com for the latest updates.
The Brussels-based Eurocontrol, which coordinates European air traffic control operators, said the cause "has been identified and action is underway to return to normal operations" but that that would not happen until "late this evening".
The breakdown comes a day after the Easter holidays when many travellers are on the move around Europe, and as commuters across France faced disruption from a massive rail strike in protest at President Emmanuel Macron's reforms.
"We have never had anything like this before," a Eurocontrol spokesman told AFP.
Brussels airport said departures were limited to 10 flights an hour. The Belgian airport manages 650 flights a day, according to its website.
Several airports across the continent warned of problems, with Schiphol saying that the "system failure" at Eurocontrol could have "possible consequences" for departures.
Helsinki, Prague and Copenhagen airports also said traffic was facing delays.
Eurocontrol said that there had been a "failure of the Enhanced Tactical Flow Management System", which tracks and manages traffic demand across the continent.
There has been a failure of the Enhanced Tactical Flow Management System. Contingency procedures are being put in place which will have the effect of reducing the capacity of the European network by approximately 10%. Further information will be provided as soon as possible.
— EUROCONTROL (@eurocontrol) April 3, 2018
"Contingency procedures are being put in place which will have the effect of reducing the capacity of the European network by approximately 10 per cent," the agency said in an initial statement.
It added that flight plans filed before 1026 GMT were "lost" and asked airlines to refile them.
It added that air traffic control had not been directly affected and "there are no safety implications arising from this incident".
As from 1520 UTC, we have reopened the access to its flow management system while remaining in Procedural Contingency mode. This is the next step in re-establishing normal Network Manager operations, which is expected later tonight.
— EUROCONTROL (@eurocontrol) April 3, 2018