Malta International Airport plc - September Traffic Results
On 11 October 2023, Malta International Airport plc published the September 2023 traffic results. Passenger movements exceeded their relative 2019 figures for the ninth consecutive month and amounted to 812,176 passenger movements, which is 6.5% above the comparable figure of 762,361 registered in September 2019. Passenger movements in September 2023 were 23.3% higher than the movements registered in the same month last year.
The seat load factor for September 2023 also remained high at 89.2%, which is 3.0 percentage points higher than in September 2019, despite the fact that seat capacity was also 3% higher when compared to 2019.
MIA stated that Italy remained the most popular destination, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Spain. The top five markets accounted for 66% of September’s total traffic. Nonetheless, MIA noted that while Italy (+48.8%) and France (+46.4%) registered significant growth over 2019 levels, in contrast, UK (-19.1%) and Germany (-23.8%) fared well below 2019 levels while Spain was virtually in line with 2019 levels.
The passenger movements during the nine-month period ended September 2023 amounted to 5.97 million, representing an increase of 6% over the corresponding period in 2019 and 36% above the passenger traffic recorded in the same period last year.
On 1 August 2023, MIA had projected that during 2023, total passenger movements would amount to 7.20 million. This would represent a further 18.7% growth over the 5.85 million passenger movements of 2022 and would translate into a 98.5% recovery of the record pre-pandemic traffic in 2019 which amounted to 7.31 million passengers.
MIA also published the 2023/24 Winter Schedule which features direct flights to 30 different markets, with increased flight frequencies for several popular markets.