Malta International Airport plc - September Traffic Results

On 7 October, Malta International Airport plc published its September traffic results revealing a 5.8% increase in passenger movements over September 2015 to an all-time high of 531,962 passengers. The growth in passenger traffic in September is attributable to a 4.2% increase in seat capacity coupled with a high seat load factor of 87.5% (September 2015: 86.2%) – indicating that airlines in general were also more efficient in filling up their seats available.

The top five markets remained the UK, Italy, Germany, France and Spain with all five markets registering varying degrees of growth ranging from 2% to 14%. The announcement also noted that the growth of the French market was due to the increased capacity on the Paris Orly route. Additionally, Spain retained its position amongst the top five markets following the introduction of additional flights to Madrid. Furthermore, both Poland and Switzerland experienced a remarkable hike in passenger movements compared to 2015 of 36% and 14% respectively.

January to September 2016  

During the first nine months of 2016, MIA registered a 7.5% increase in passenger movements to 3.89 million when compared to the same period last year on the back of a 5.3% increase in seat capacity and a 1.7 percentage point increase in the seat load factor to 83.4%.

In July, MIA had revised upwards its passenger growth forecast for 2016 to +7.5% to 4.97 million passengers compared to the previous 2016 forecast of 4.73 million (+2.4%) revealed in January 2016.