Malta International Airport plc - February Traffic Results

On 5 March, Malta International Airport plc published the February 2015 traffic results revealing yet another record month with 208,896 passenger movements during the month under review representing an 8.1% increase over the same month in 2014. The increased passenger traffic was due to a 3.1% increase in seat capacity combined with a 3.4 percentage point increase in the seat load factor to 75.9%.

The airport operator also stated that the Italian market was the largest contributor to the passenger growth during February with a 17% uplift on the back of increased capacity on the Catania route and an overall seat load factor increase across most Italian destinations. Furthermore, the French (+35.6%) and Turkish (+55.8%) markets also registered considerable growth whilst the UK and German markets registered a more modest improvement of 3.9% and 6.2% respectively. The announcement further noted that in the case of Turkey, passenger numbers are expected to grow further after Turkish Airlines announced that it will be increasing its frequency to and from Malta from the current 5 flights a week to 13 later on in 2015.

MIA’s CEO Alan Borg commented that the February traffic statistics are another reminder that the passenger growth seen in Malta is steady, consistent and year-round including the winter period which officially ends on 28 March. In fact, during the five months to February 2015, passenger numbers have grown by 5.1% over the previous comparable period.

Earlier this year, MIA announced a forecast of a 2% increase in passenger numbers for 2015 to yet another record of circa 4.37 million passenger movements on the back of further capacity being deployed to Malta as well as a number of new airlines and routes, including Aegean, Finnair, Jet2.com and Swiss as well as increased frequencies on existing routes. Furthermore, Transaero Airlines have now announced that they will start operating a Malta-Moscow route as from 26 April, making it the fifth airline to launch operations to MIA this year.