Malta International Airport plc - Revised Projections

July 28, 2017

On 27 July, Malta International Airport plc announced revised passenger and financial projections for 2017.

During the first six months of this year, MIA registered a 20% increase in passenger movements to a record 2,639,712 on the back of a 15% growth in aircraft movements, a 19% increase in seat capacity as well as a healthy seat load factor of 80.7% (compared to 80% in the first six months of 2016).

On the back of this strong performance in the first half of the year, MIA now expects passenger movements to grow by 14% to 16% for the whole of 2017 to reach yet another record high of 5.8 million passenger movements. This is significantly higher than the Company’s initial forecast of a 2% to 3% growth (announced back in January 2017). The new growth rate also reflects the highest annual increase in passenger traffic at MIA which is expected to exceed 750,000 passengers. MIA’s CEO Mr Alan Borg attributed this to the continued efforts in enhancing Malta’s connectivity and increasing capacity.

Apart from the strong performance in the first half, the revised projection also takes into consideration the traffic developments for the upcoming winter season (November 2017 – March 2018). In fact, Ryanair and Easyjet will be introducing four new routes during the upcoming winter season whilst Air Malta, Wizz Air and Aegean Airlines will extend a number of routes they operated during the summer months also into the winter season. Furthermore, SAS, Lufthansa, Vueling and Jet2 will also be increasing flight frequencies on some of their routes.

The announcement also noted that by the end of 2017, MIA will have invested €16 million in its infrastructure including the ongoing terminal reconfiguration project. To date, MIA has completed the new La Valette lounge, a reconceived observation deck and the relocation of the security screening area. Meanwhile, upon the completion of the first phase of the reconfiguration project, the terminal will also be furnished with 8 additional check-in desks and a new baggage handling system.

MIA also updated its financial targets as follows:

	Revised Target	% Change Over 2016	Previous Target (as per Company Announcement dated 11 January 2017)	2016 (as reported)
Revenue	Over €79 million	+8.1%	Over €73 million	€73,064,828
EBITDA	Over €45 million	+12.5%	Over €40 million	€39,988,521
Net Profit	Over €23 million	+9.6%	Over €20 million	€20,981,628
Capital Investments	€16 million	+123.5%	€18 million	€7,159,376
Net Debt	NIL	N/A	Not more than €14 million	€9,797,771
Contributions to Government	€16 million	+14.3%	€14 million	€14 million