Airport passenger movements up five per cent

Passenger movements through Malta International Airport increased by nearly 150,000 last year, according to a statistical review showing the ever-growing reliance on the UK market.

The MIA 2004 Annual Statistical Review showed an increase of five per cent over 2003, which brings airport traffic back to 2000-2001 levels.

Cargo traffic also registered a considerable increase of seven per cent on tonnage and freight flights were also on the increase.

Passengers on scheduled flights to the UK totalled 646,630, more than double the figure to Germany, while flights to Italy totalled 350,669.

Non-scheduled flights to the UK also topped the list with 424,674 passenger movements, showing the popularity of charter flights.

August remains the busiest month for MIA with 361,167 foreign passenger movements - an average of nearly 12,000 a day. The quietest month is January, with 108,795 passengers making use of the airport.

British passengers accounted for about 40 per cent of all movements throughout 2004. Traffic from the Baltic states remains low with fewer than 2,000 arrivals, in stark contrast to movements involving Russian (39,757), Bulgarian (9,293) and Romanian (6,733) passengers.

The traffic of German passengers practically equalled that of neighbouring Italy. A total of 118,000 passengers from Africa used MIA in 2004, half of whom were Libyan. The popularity of Dubai as a destination is evident, with 28,200 passenger movements.

The top three airports connecting with MIA are all British - Gatwick, Manchester and Heathrow - followed by Frankfurt Airport, Rome's Fiumicino and Milan's Malpensa.

As expected, Air Malta was the biggest user of MIA, with 1.6 million passengers, an increase of nearly 46,000 passengers over 2003. Alitalia was the second biggest carrier, transporting 135,287 passengers, while Lufthansa carried 125,303 people.

Writing in the report, MIA chief executive Peter Bolech described 2004 as a rewarding one, adding that the market recovery had taken four years to emerge from the spoils of September 11 and the Sars scare.