Malta International Airport plc - July Traffic Results

On 11 August 2023, Malta International Airport plc published the July 2023 traffic results. Passenger movements exceeded their relative 2019 figures for the seventh consecutive month, reaching a record figure for July of 848,716 passenger movements, which is 6.3% above the comparable figure of 798,453 registered in July 2019. Passenger movements in July 2023 are 23.2% higher than the movements registered in the same month last year.

MIA noted that the July 2023 monthly passenger traffic figure also marked a new overall monthly record, exceeding the previous record registered in August 2019 by more than 25,000 passenger movements.

The seat load factor for July 2023 stood at 89.1%, which is 2.1 percentage points higher than in July 2019. The airport operator explained that seat capacity was also 3.8% higher when compared to 2019, despite aircraft movements remaining in line with 2019 levels, due to larger aircraft being operated on flights to Malta.

MIA stated that Italy remained the most popular destination, followed by the United Kingdom. Notably, France registered a 52% growth over 2019 levels to overtake Germany as the third most popular destination. Furthermore, Spain also grew by 1.2% compared to pre-pandemic levels.

MIA explained that August is expected to be an even busier month than July.

The passenger movements at MIA between January and July 2023 amounted to 4.28 million, representing an increase of 5.7% over the corresponding period in 2019 and 41.2% above the passenger traffic recorded in the same period last year.

On 1 August 2023, MIA projected that during 2023, total passenger movements would amount to 7.20 million. This would represent a further 18.7% growth over the 5.85 million passenger movements of 2022 and would translate into a 98.5% recovery of the record pre-pandemic traffic in 2019 which amounted to 7.31 million passengers.