Malta International Airport plc - September Traffic Results

On 4 October, Malta International Airport plc published the September 2013 traffic results. The statistics reveal a 10.8% increase in passenger movements to 452,295 – yet another monthly record. The growth in passenger traffic in September 2013 was due to a 12.1% increase in seat capacity to 534,420 seats which offset the 1 percentage point decrease in the seat load factor to 84.6%.

The airport operator stated that double-digit growth figures in passenger movements were registered in the German (+33.7%), Italian (+19.1%) and French markets (+14.9%). The UK market also registered growth during the month under review of 1.1% while passengers from Spain dropped by 6.4% in September.

January to September 2013

During the first nine months of the year, MIA registered a 9% increase in passenger movements to 3,157,730 – a record number of passenger movements during this period and already higher than the number of annual passenger movements recorded prior to 2010. This growth reflects the 9.0% increase in seat capacity to just over 4 million seats whilst the seat load factor remained unchanged at 78%.

The largest growth in passengers emanated from the Italian (+17.1%) and the French (+11.3%) markets. Passengers from Germany (+4.1%) and UK (+3.6%) also grew during the first nine months of 2013 whilst those from Spain contracted by 4%.

British Airways to resume operations from Malta

The September traffic announcement also made reference to the news that British Airways will return to Malta with a daily flight to Gatwick in the UK as from 30 March 2014.