Malta International Airport plc - February Traffic Results
On 9 March 2020, Malta International Airport plc published the February 2020 traffic results, revealing a 17.3% increase in passenger movements to 421,567 passengers. MIA also added that despite the significant increase of 17.3% in seat capacity, the seat load factor only eased to 75.8% compared to 75.9% during February 2019.
Most of MIA’s largest markets, namely the UK, Italy, France and Spain all reported growth during the month under review whilst Germany was the only main market to report a contraction of 5%.
Despite the overall positive result for the month of February, MIA noted that the seat load factors particularly on Italian routes, are being adversely impacted by the coronavirus outbreak in Europe as demand for travel declines as experienced during the last week of February. MIA emphasised the challenge that all aviation and tourism stakeholders are facing as demand for air travel continues to decline and airlines reduce capacity across the board. As a result, MIA is now expecting to experience two challenging months which also includes the Easter period. MIA’s CEO Mr Alan Borg further noted that, to date, seven airlines have already cancelled 278 flights from Italy and other markets.
On 29 January 2020, MIA had announced that it is expecting an increase of 2% to 3% in passenger movements in 2020 to a new record of 7.5 million passengers.