Malta International Airport plc - September Traffic Results

On 5 October, Malta International Airport plc published the traffic results for September 2012 revealing a 6.6% increase in passenger movements when compared to the same month last year. The total amount of passenger movements totalling 407,917 during September 2012 was the highest number ever registered in this particular month by the company. It was also the sixth consecutive month of record passenger movements for MIA.

The growth in passengers during September was brought about by a 3.5% rise in aircraft movements and a 3.6% rise in seat capacity when compared to September 2011 to 476,074 seats. MIA reported that the seat load factor also grew by 2.5 percentage points when compared to the same period last year to 85.7%.

The statistics also showed that during September 2012, the highest increase in passengers emanated from the Spanish markets with growth of 14.7%. Passengers from France, Italy and the UK rose by 2.5%, 0.5% and 0.2% respectively. Meanwhile, the German market reported a 5% decrease in passengers.

January – September 2012

During the nine months to 30 September 2012, passenger traffic grew by 4.1% compared to the same period last year to just below 2.9 million passenger movements mainly reflecting the record number of passengers recorded during the peak months of July and August.  For the first nine months of this year, aircraft movements increased marginally when compared to the same period in 2011. Similarly, seat capacity increased by 0.4% to 3.67 million seats and the average seat load factor increased by 2.8 percentage points to 78.9%.

In July, MIA had announced that it expects the positive trend in traffic results experienced during the first six months of the year to continue in the second half of 2012. As a result, MIA revised its passenger forecast for 2012 from the initial 2.8% drop to a 1.5% increase which should lead to a new record of 3.56 million passenger movements – the third consecutive annual record.