January numbers higher than pre-Covid years for the first time, MIA says

Following several months of registering strong recovery rates, Malta International Airport’s traffic surpassed 2019 passenger numbers for the first time since February 2020 last January, MIA said in a statement.

January’s traffic totalled 379,335 passenger movements, marking an increase of 3.6 per cent compared to the same month in 2019. While this result constitutes a significant milestone in the airport’s gradual recovery, the busiest start to the year at Malta International Airport remains January 2020 with 418,096 passenger movements.

Almost 77 per cent of the seats available on flights operated to and from Malta International Airport were occupied during January, indicating a healthy demand for travel. However, pent-up demand is expected to start levelling off as the year wears on. While Malta International Airport was connected to 31 markets in January, Italy held on to its top spot in the market leaderboard with 85,618 passenger movements.

The United Kingdom ranked second with 58,836 passenger movements, followed by France, Poland and Germany. The German market, which has been a laggard in terms of recovery, lost the spot it had occupied for several months prior to January to Poland.

While more seat capacity was deployed on German routes, a significant difference in the seat load performance of 92 per cent for Poland and 77 per cent for Germany, resulted in the former overtaking the latter by 695 passenger movements.