• May traffic grows by 14.4% over last year
• May second month to register more than half a million passenger movements this year
• MIA’S top 5 markets continue to grow, following added capacity to these destinations

As the summer months set in, traffic at Malta International Airport continued on its upward trend picked up over the past months, with May registering an increase of 14.4% in passenger numbers over the same time last year.

Malta International Airport hosted a total of 548,354 travellers in May, with over 68,000 more travellers welcomed last month when compared to 2016. This increase in passenger numbers is equivalent to an extra 12 commercial aircraft carrying a full load of 180 passengers every day last month.

This growth was fuelled by an upturn of 12.5% in aircraft movements and 15.1% in seat capacity. On the other hand, seat load factor (SLF), which measures airlines’ efficiency in filling seats, decreased marginally by 0.9 percentage points and stood at 80.5%.

The airport’s top five markets have remained unchanged during the past months, with the United Kingdom topping the list followed by Italy, Germany, France, and Belgium. All of these markets registered varying levels of growth, starting from a 10.0% increase on German destinations and reaching 132% for traffic from Brussels.

These positive results were achieved on the back of MIA’s recently launched summer schedule, which boasts an average of 130 flights per day.