Malta International Airport welcomed more than 1.6 million passengers between November and March, it said in an announcement on the Malta Stock Exchange.

This figure translated into an upturn of 25% in traffic, which growth was reached on the back of an increase of 19% in aircraft movements and an improvement of 26% in seat capacity.

The top five contributors to traffic during winter were the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and France.

All of these markets reached varying levels of growth over last year following developments including the introduction of new routes to Catania, Germany, and France and increased flight frequencies on existing routes.

The season was closed off with March registering an increase of 53,795 passenger movements over 2016, even though the Easter effect was registered in March last year.

Last month also marked the launch of two new routes - Katowice in Poland and Cluj-Napoca in Romania, with more new connections expected to commence in the coming weeks.