Passenger movements at Malta International Airport grew by 25.3%  last month, reaching 300,123,  the highest number ever registered in April.

MIA said the result was brought about thanks to record seat capacity for the month, which exceeded 400,000 seats,  an increase of 13.3% over April 2010. The increase in April compared to April last year  needed to be seen in the context that April 2010 figures were negatively affected by the volcanic ash disruption, MIA said.

It said the average seat load factor last month was 73% - an increase of 7 percentage points, whilst aircraft movements for the month grew by 10.2% over the corresponding period last year.

Cargo and mail was 4.6% higher than that recorded during the same month in 2010.

The German, French, UK and Spanish markets grew remarkably in April, by 45.3%, 34.5%, 31.7% and 25.8% respectively, whereas the Italian market suffered a negligible decrease of 0.4%.

Between January and April this year, passenger movements increased by 19.2%, with aircraft movements registering an increase by 13.1% over the same first four months of 2010. The seat capacity increased by 15.5% and the average seat load factor increased by 2.1 percentage points over the first four months of 2010.