Route 88 via PaolaorTaxi, pre-paid booth ticket?

From

The "Airport 2" stop at the bus terminal outside arrivals, with a 24-hour tallinja card machine beside it

To

The Valletta bus terminus outside City Gate, in 30 to 51 minutes, after Gudja, Ħal Għaxaq, Żejtun, Tarxien, Paola, Marsa and Floriana (Bombi, Sarrija, Mall, Publiju)

Luggage

An ordinary city bus: the operator welcomes "small luggage items" that do not block the aisle and says drivers "may limit or refuse" large or bulky ones.

Runs

05:30–22:50

Journey

30–51 min

Fifty cents cheaper than the TD4 and about half an hour slower: 30 to 51 minutes through nine localities and nearly forty stops against 11 to 17 direct.

The fare changes with the calendar: EUR 2.50 now, EUR 2.00 in winter. The TD4 is EUR 3 all year.

Last bus 22:50 on weekdays and 22:30 at weekends, first 05:30. After it, the TD4 until 00:50; after that, the taxi.

Eight of you: one EUR 19 twelve-journey card, tapped eight times, beats eight EUR 2.50 tickets and leaves four journeys for the week. It is sold at the office and the machines, not by the driver.

Cash on board is exact change only, by the operator's conditions; a contactless bank card avoids the problem.

This is one of the four routes the operator named as the X4's replacement; the airport's own bus page does not list it, but its timetable starts at the airport.

Route 88 via Paola: price for every party size →

From

The taxi booth at arrivals — buy the ticket there, then the rank outside; the airport names Malta Taxi as its official service

To

Any address in Valletta, Floriana or at the Cruise Terminal at EUR 17; other localities at the table's price for them

Luggage

Included: the tariff has no luggage supplement, and regulation 47 obliges the driver to see that "the luggage is stored securely in the luggage booth".

Runs

All night

Journey

12–20 min

It loses to the bus at every party size, by EUR 1.50 at eight. EUR 17 seats five; the sixth passenger lifts it to EUR 25.50, and eight TD4 tickets are EUR 24. Its case is the night, the bags and the door.

Buy the ticket at the booth, not from the driver. The regulation requires the pre-paid ticket where a booth operates and forbids the driver to take the hire without it; the fiscal receipt half is yours to keep.

EUR 17 is the legal maximum for the ticket to Valletta. If the booth quotes less, pay less; if a driver asks for more than the ticket, the regulation is on your side.

More than five passengers costs half as much again, EUR 25.50, and Transport Malta says the rule "applies only to taxi vehicles which may legally carry more than 6 people"; ask the booth for one. Two ordinary cars are EUR 34.

The fare is by locality, not by zone: Floriana and the Cruise Terminal are EUR 17 like Valletta, but Sliema is EUR 20, St Julian's EUR 21 and Msida EUR 19. Say the town, not "the center".

No authority publishes a taxi journey time. The 15 minutes here is the TD4's timetabled 11 to 17 over the same road; allow more at the morning peak.

Between 00:50 and 05:20 it is the only thing that leaves, at the same EUR 17: the table has no night rate.

Taxi, pre-paid booth ticket: price for every party size →