Airport sees sharp decline but sticks to end-of-year forecast

The number of passengers passing through the airport fell by 18.8 per cent last month when compared to the same period last year.

The drop in passenger movements for the January to March quarter was of 14.4 per cent, mainly because seat capacity fell by 10.7 per cent, Malta International Airport said.

MIA chief executive Julian Jaeger said he had been expecting a worse decline: "We find no reason to rethink our predictions at this point whereby we have gauged a drop of 5.5 per cent by end year".

Despite the falling passenger numbers faced by airports overseas, MIA said it had managed to secure last summer's seat capacity in collaboration with the Malta Tourism Authority.

Moreover, it confirmed that low-cost airlines Vueling and Click Air would again be flying to Madrid and Barcelona respectively in summer while Air Malta would increase the number of flights to Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey and Bulgaria.

Furthermore, Ryanair, which had dropped Bremen, had replaced it with Bari and doubled its flights to Trapani to four a week. It had also introduced flights to Edinburgh and would be adding Bristol to its schedule.

MIA noted that SAS had also launched flights to Stockholm and Easyjet to Newcastle while a new operator, Air Nostrum, would be flying to Madrid in the summer.