MIA’s passenger movements reach all-time record in August

Passenger movements in Malta International Airport in August reaches 598,515

6 September 2016, 1:15pm
by Jeanelle Mifsud

2 min read

On its busiest day, the airport hosted 22,908 passengers

The unparalleled figures for August’s passenger movements have topped all traffic records previously established by the Malta International Airport, registering 598,515 movements.

“This figure translates into a growth of 2.3% over last year, indicating that the airport was bustling with an average of 19,300 passengers a day,” MIA said in a statement.

The airport said that it had initially projected its busiest day to have an estimated 22,500 passengers. However, the actual figures show that it marginally surpassed this figure and hosted 22,908 passengers, while still maintaining smooth operations.

MIA added that August’s numbers can be attributed to an increase in seat capacity, together with a high seat load factor of 88.8%. “This indicates that airlines were also more efficient in filling up the seats available, as more tourists chose to fly to Malta for their August break,” it said.

Looking at its top five markets, the airport said that the majority of tourists who flocked to the Maltese islands last month came from the UK, Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, with the latter featuring as the fifth top driver of traffic to Malta for the second, consecutive month.

“Healthy growth rates of 3.6% and 4.1% ensured that the UK and Italy respectively, retained their position as Malta International Airport’s top drivers of passenger traffic,” MIA’s statement read. “Both these markets presently enjoy an enhanced network to Malta, following added flights on a number of routes such as Edinburgh and Catania and a new popular route to Palermo.”

On the other hand, MIA said that the markets recording the most significant growth were Poland and Spain. “Poland grew by 47% over last year after the introduction of Gdansk and Poznań brought Polish routes up to five. On the other hand, Spain recorded a 14.7% growth over 2015 due to a new connection from Madrid and increased capacity to Gerona.”

Cargo and mail registered a decrease of 3.20% over the same month last year, MIA said.