All time record in passenger movements at MIA last month

Passenger movements at Malta International Airport last month increased by 7.1 per cent over last year, reaching an all-time record of 445,232.

MIA said in a statement that this record was achieved after the 1.6 per cent growth reported for the first half of the year.

The previous record for any one month was achieved in August 2010 with 427,924 passengers.

The airport said that aircraft movements and seat capacity increased by 4.8 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively over the corresponding period last year, while the average seat load factor increased by 1.1 percentage points to reach 85.1 per cent.

This increase in the seat-load factor is the 16^th monthly consecutive growth. The maximum take-off weight also increased by 5.6 per cent on that registered in July last year, while cargo and mail were eight per cent higher than that recorded during the same month in 2011.

All the core markets, with the exception of Germany, registered increases in July with Italy, France and Spain showing an increase of 10.2 per cent, 9.7 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively.

The largest market, the United Kingdom, had an increase of 2.4 per cent. The German market, on the other hand, registered a decrease of one per cent, which is equivalent to 613 passenger movements.

In the first seven months, passenger movements increase by 2.8 per cent when compared to the same period last year, totalling 2.02 million passenger movements.

This overall increase was mostly due to the record number of passengers in the month of July.

This is in line with NSO figures, which have been announcing record visitors since April.

*Compared to same period for 2011