Malta International Airport plc - January Traffic Results

On 4 February, Malta International Airport plc published the January 2013 traffic results. The statistics reveal an 8% increase in passenger movements to an all-time high for the month of January of 179,243 when compared to the same month last year. The increased passenger traffic was due to a 1.1 percentage point rise in the average seat load factor to 66.3% as well as a 6.2% growth in capacity to 270,400 seats. These figures for the month of January represent the tenth consecutive monthly record with respect to passenger statistics.

The airport operator stated that double-digit growth was registered by the Libyan (+45.6%), French (+20.8%) and Italian (+17.8%) markets. Passengers from the UK also increased by 6.8% whilst the German market was relatively unchanged.

MIA is forecasting that passenger numbers for 2013 will be 1.5% higher than those registered in 2012 to yet another annual record of over 3.7 million passengers. Although demand for travel, particularly from MIA’s main markets of UK, Germany, Italy and Spain, will continue to be impacted by the prevailing crisis in the eurozone, Malta is expected to attract further tourists and business travellers during the course of 2013. Moreover, the Company’s forecast is also based on the introduction of six new routes including a new route to the East Midlands in the UK which will be operated by Monarch (the first time this airline will operating to and from MIA), three new routes by Ryanair, a new route to Oslo by airBaltic and increased frequency by Lufthansa on the Frankfurt route. Following this forecast, MIA announced a new route to Budapest in Hungary by Wizz Air to commence in May and Transavia’s route to Paris beginning from summer 2013.