November traffic through MIA up 15.8%

Malta International Airport achieved double digit growth in passenger movements last month for the 14th consecutive month.

In a notice on the Malta Stock Exchange, the airport said it hosted 55,000 passengers more in November than it did in the same month in 2016, closing off the month with 405,724 movements. This translated into an increase of 15.8% over last year.

This record number of passengers for November was observed in parallel with an increase of 18.1% in aircraft movements and a 19.2% improvement in seat capacity.

Seat load factor, which marks airlines’ ability to fill available seats on flights, dropped slightly and stood at 79 per cent.

The month’s top five markets accounted for more than half the total passenger movements for November.

The United Kingdom continued to top the leaderboard with over 100,000 passenger movements, followed by Italy, Germany, France, and Belgium. While the first four markets all registered varying levels of growth, Belgium lost around 570 passenger movements when compared with 2016.

The biggest spike in passenger numbers in November was observed in the Polish market, which grew by 76.3% over last year. This strong increase could be...