Malta’s only airport is not just doing well in terms of passenger traffic – as tourism again hit a record this year – but is also keeping up with much bigger airports when it comes to the use of social media. According to a study carried out by ACI, the European trade association, Malta International Airport had close to 17,000 Facebook fans by last November or about 4,000 fans per million passengers.

This compares well with other airports including mega European hubs such as Heathrow and Frankfurt, which have fewer fans per million passengers.

The study, called ‘Digital media at airports’, aims to measure the use of social media by air passengers and airport users.

MIA has close to 17,000 fans on Facebook

It found that the majority of airports around the EU have long realised the medium is one of the best tools to communicate with clients and that its use is becoming more and more fashionable.

Some airports are even offering services such as check-in facilities through social media and have launched smartphone apps for the purpose.

Facebook and Twitter are by far the most popular social networks used by airports.

More than 280 European airports are present on Facebook and collectively they have over three million fans. These airports together welcome 86.3 per cent of European passenger traffic. Germany’s Frankfurt airport is the most Facebook-followed airport with 237,349 fans.

With more than 109,000, Porto’s airport is among the top five in terms of Facebook followers despite having just a tenth of Heathrow’s traffic.

The research found there are 292 official airport Twitter accounts, the most popular being London’s Heathrow and Gatwick with over 200,000 followers.

The home of hashtags tends to be more popular than Facebook when it comes to passengers seeking information. Airports answered 2,469 questions on Twitter compared to 409 questions on Facebook between last October and November.

The study also shows that most passengers expect to be provided with wi-fi connection at airports almost by right and in most cases they also expect it to be free of charge.

Most of Europe’s top airports were found to offer free wi-fi services, entailing significant investment and maintenance.

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