Updated - includes MIA's new corporate video
Malta International Airport said today that it expects passenger number to grow by 1.5% higher this year compared to 2012, which itself was a record year.
3.65 million passengers used MIA in 2012 and the figure for this year is expected to reach 3.7million.
The announcement was made by Chief Executive Officer Markus Klaushofer at a news conference.
He said MIA passenger figures grew by 4.1% last year over 2011.
"The forecast for 2013 is based on various considerations which include the flight schedules committed as well as the European economic crisis which is expected to continue to impact demand for travel, particularly in Malta’s core markets – UK, Italy, Germany, France and Spain," he said.
The CEO highlighted the fact that 2012 was the third consecutive record year, and the fourth out of the last five.
He said the company had continued with its efforts to keep Malta attractive for
airlines through its updated Incentive Scheme, which included the waiving of landing fees in the winter for the second consecutive year, the waiving of the night surcharge all year round, free aircraft parking for scheduled passenger flights all year round, as well as further incentives for non-EU traffic.
NEW ROUTES
The new routes for 2013 will be the Monarch operation to East Midlands in the UK, airBaltic’s weekly flight to Riga in Latvia, Ryanair’s announced new destinations: Liverpool (UK), Bergamo (Italy) and Gothenburg (Sweden), as well as the added capacity by Lufthansa on its Frankfurt (Germany) operation.
AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS
Mr Klaushofer said that aircraft movements at Malta Airport increased slightly by 182 last year, 0.6% more when compared to 2011 whilst seat capacity increased by almost 50,000, which was equivalent to 1.1%.
A
ir Malta had 1,660,545 passenger movements, registering a negligible decrease of 1.1% on figures registered in 2011, and which resulted in a share of 45.5% of total traffic.
It was followed by Ryanair with a traffic share of 25.4% equivalent to 925,880 passenger movements meaning an increase of 17.6% and easyJet with a traffic share of 8.8% equivalent to 319,601 passenger movements meaning a decrease of 6.3%.
Malta Airport’s main markets for 2012 were the United Kingdom with a share of 30% translating into 1,106,436 passenger movements, +1.9% over 2011. This was followed by Italy with 17% or 619,575 passenger movements, i.e. +0.5% over 2011; and Germany with 15% or 539,119 passenger movements, resulting in an increase of 3.5% over last year.
Low Cost carriers increased their market share by two percentage points to 36.4% (32% in 2010, 34.4% in 2011) with an increase of 10.1% in passenger movements. Charter operations have retained their 7% share from total traffic as in 2011 (6% in 2010) with an increase of 2% in their passenger movements.