Malta International Airport is recording its best summer on record, with 1.6 million passengers.

More than 500,000 passengers passed each month in July, August and September, the first time this has happened, MIA said in a statement this afternoon.

The Italian market alone grew by 12.9 per cent and the British market by more than seven per cent.

September was the third month in a row this year to have seen more than 500,000 passengers passing through MIA.

With a total of 502,823 passengers travelling through the airport last month, this marks an 8.6 per cent rise over the number of passengers in September 2014.

The average seat load factor for the month, which measures the number of filled seats on every flight, rose marginally to 85.8 per cent last month. Aircraft movements also registered a 10.8 per cent growth, which is mostly attributed to the new seat capacity secured this year with the addition of new airlines operating to and from Malta.

“We are optimistic about the forthcoming winter schedule and are now actively working on securing new capacity for summer 2016,” said MIA's CEO Alan Borg.

German passengers recorded a drop of 4.4 per cent due to fewer aircraft movements to Frankfurt and Munich while the French market marked a marginal decrease of 1.5 per cent. Traffic to and from Spain was reduced by 10 per cent due to a reduction in seats on the Barcelona and Girona routes.

Traffic to and from Turkey has more than doubled over September 2014, while new traffic from Switzerland and Poland have generated 26 per cent and 33 per cent growth respectively.

Up until the end of September, MIA traffic grew by seven per cent over last year.