Maltese travellers up by a third

A total of 35,441 Maltese went abroad in the first two months of this year as air travel jumped by 31.6 per cent over the same period last year, the National Statistics Office has estimated.

In all, 34,397 outbound Maltese passengers travelled by air and 1,044 by sea, the latter mode of travel seeing a 13.6 per cent drop.

The vast majority (86.6 per cent, or 30,684) set off for EU destinations with the most visited countries being the UK (11,672) and Italy (9,456). Just 4,757 passengers headed for non-EU countries. At 21,755, most travellers were male. Half of the travellers were aged between 25 and 44.