Air Malta reports passenger traffic, revenue growth

Passenger traffic and revenue grew in the second quarter of this year, Air Malta said yesterday.

It said the number of passengers it carried increased by nine per cent on the entire scheduled network while revenues improved by 3.5 per cent.

"The improvement in our revenue streams came from increased passenger loads and not from yields, which means that performance appears to be experiencing the same syndrome as the rest of the industry in Europe," airline chairman Lawrence Zammit said.

Overseas markets where Air Malta operates from increased traffic by five per cent while revenues dropped marginally by less than half a percentage point.

But traffic from Malta registered a dramatic improvement of over 20.5 per cent in passengers and 10.7 per cent in revenues, while markets outside the Air Malta route network contributed with an increase of 27 per cent in passenger uplifts and almost 23 per cent in revenue.

"This is an encouraging trend we would like to keep up. I think we are seeing the first positive results emerging as a direct consequence of a number of measures we took earlier this year," Mr Zammit said.

"We are particularly pleased with the performance of our home market which has registered substantial improvements. There is no doubt that we are gaining market share. We are obviously conscious of the effect that the drop in yields has in the overall equation, particularly at a time when costs for the industry such as fuel are on the way up. However, we know that our pricing is the most effective tool we have to fight with for our fair share of the business," he concluded.

Earlier this year Air Malta launched its budget operations between Malta and London Stansted with a newly branded Fare 4U product and the intra-European flights between Catania and London Gatwick. This week the airline launched FlexiFly, a new pricing concept, which is being introduced on all its full service routes as from November 1.