Airport passenger movements on scheduled and non-scheduled flights during August increased marginally when compared to the same month last year, MIA said today.

Total passenger movements in August reached 390,566, an increase of 2,324, or 0.6% on the same month last year. Aircraft movements decreased by 3.2% for a total of 2,996.

The seat capacity also decreased by 9,515 (-1.9%) but the seat load factor increased by 2 percentage points to an average of 80.8%.

Cargo and mail handled at MIA during the month of August was of 1,361 tonnes, which was practically at the same levels as last year.

MIA said the negative trend from the UK market persisted during August with a decrease of over 10%. However, this shortfall was balanced with increases from the German, Italian, Spanish and French markets. Passenger movements from and to the UK decreased by nearly 13,400, whilst traffic from Italy, Germany, France and Spain increased by 4.6%, 1.1%, 2.7% and 70.8% respectively for a total of 13,395 from these four main markets.

Traffic – January to August 2008

Figures for the 2008-to-date period showed an increase of 184,909 passenger movements (9.3%) from January to August this year, and an increase of 326 aircraft movements (+1.8%) on scheduled and non-scheduled traffic. The seat capacity increased by 5.2%, whereas this year the seat load factor also improved to an average of 72.1%. Cargo and Mail activity increased by 4.8% during the period January-August 2008 for a total of 12,143 tonnes handled.

Passenger movements from the UK decreased by 1693 (-0.2%) whilst those from Italy and France increased by 7.8% and 14.5% respectively between January and August 2008. The highest increases registered were from Germany 57,509 (+21.4%) and Spain 63,902 (+203%).