Malta International Airport said today that its financial performance so far this year was better than the projected results.

Passenger traffic for the first four months of the year reached 1,033,023 movements to achieve an overall growth of 10.3% over the same period last year, equivalent to 50,800 additional passenger movements.

This performance was a direct result of a 9.0% increase in seat capacity as aircraft movements reached a total of 8,447 or 8.8% more than last year.

Despite the overall increase in seat capacity, seat load factor was sustained whilst also registering a 1.0% improvement during the first four months to reach an overall average of 74.1%.

"The increased traffic achieved during winter and spring demonstrates that Malta continues to trend as an all-year round destination among holidaymakers," the company said.

It pointed out that the traffic figures for April were comparable to those achieved in June 2012 (375,294 passengers).

The outlook for the summer season looks positive albeit at significantly reduced growth rates, it added.

WizzAir will be increasing its presence in Malta introducing three new scheduled routes in June to operate twice weekly from Gdansk and Sofia, and three times a week from Bucharest. Wizz Air will also be increasing their Budapest schedule from four to five flights a week between June and September.

Similarly, as from August, Emirates will increase its weekly schedule to operate twice daily from Dubai having one flight via Larnaca and a second flight going through Tripoli.

Brussels Airlines will be the third new airline to start operations to Malta this year to fly twice weekly from Brussels between June and September. Vueling, which already flies to Malta from Madrid and Barcelona will launch a third route from Spain to Malta operating from Seville twice weekly during July and August.