Malta International Airport plc - May Traffic Results

On 9 June 2023, Malta International Airport plc published the May 2023 traffic results. For the fifth consecutive month, passenger movements exceeded their relative 2019 figures, reaching a record figure for May of 726,299 passenger movements, which is 7.7% above the comparable figure of May 2019. The figure is 31% higher than the movements registered in the same month last year.

The seat load factor for May 2023 stood at 82.9%, which is 2.7 percentage points higher than May 2019. The airport operator explained that seat capacity increased 4.3% when compared to 2019.

MIA explained that Italy remained the most popular destination having a 24% market share, followed by the UK, France, Germany, and Spain. While Italy, France and Spain exceeded their respective 2019 passenger traffic, the UK and Germany continued to perform below pre-pandemic levels as the flight connections between Malta and these two markets have not been fully recovered. However, MIA noted that during May connectivity with the German market improved through new flights to Hamburg and Dusseldorf operated by Eurowings, which are expected to support the German market recovery during the summer months.

Since the start of 2023, passenger movements at MIA amounted to 2.68 million, representing an increase of 5.9% over the corresponding period in 2019.

On 18 January 2023, MIA had projected that during 2023, total passenger movements would amount to 6.3 million. This would represent a further 7.7% growth over the 5.85 million passenger movements of 2022 and would translate into an 86% recovery of the record pre-pandemic traffic in 2019 which amounted to 7.31 million passengers.