Malta International Airport today welcomed its four millionth passenger this year, achieving its milestone more than a month earlier than last year.

The figure means that the airport saw an average of more than 12,000 passengers every day, enough to fill up Wembley Stadium each week.

“This is a remarkable achievement. We have registered record growth in seven years out of the past eight. This would not have been possible without the dedicated effort of all our employees, partners and other stakeholders. We remain focused on developing sustainable capacity and attracting visitors to our islands, whilst offering new and exciting destinations to the local market,”  CEO Markus Klaushofer said.

The increase in passenger traffic illustrates the efforts placed by the airport and its key stakeholders to secure better connectivity to the Maltese islands.

Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said this was a major milestone and the result of the hard work of all stakeholders involved.

"Our country is developing into an even more important hub for tourism, business and other related matters. Tourism remains a major driving force for Malta’s economy.” he said, adding that 2015 would be another successful year in tourism."

For the period ending September, European airports reported a growth of 6.4 per cent while the Malta International Airport registered an increase of 7.2 per cent.

These accomplishments were mainly driven by the additional seat capacity together with an improvement in average seat load factor to reach an overall 79.6 per cent.

A gift was presented to Lucia Belardi from Italy, on behalf of MIA, in the presence of Malta Tourism Authority CEO Paul Bugeja. Passenger movements are forecast to exceed 4.2 million by end of year.