With a total of 349,430 passenger movements, last month was Malta International Airport’s busiest February to date.

Traffic for the month grew by 18% over the previous year, peaking on the 18th when the airport handled 15,189 passengers. While all winter months so far have registered double-digit growth, February's increase was the strongest.

This was observed in parallel with an increase in both aircraft movements and seat capacity, which grew by 14% and 15.5% respectively. Seat load factor (SLF) gained 1.6 percentage points to reach 78.5%.

The top contributors to February's traffic were the United Kingdom (+16%), Italy (+14%), Germany (+7%), Belgium (-2%), and France (+19%), cumulatively accounting for 71% of the total passenger movements recorded.

These markets, except for Belgium, registered varying levels of growth, stemming from a winter flight schedule offering better connections. The increase in passenger numbers from the United Kingdom and Italy could be mainly attributed to the launch of the Belfast, London Southend, Naples and Comiso routes.

On the other hand, traffic from Germany and France was boosted by better flight frequencies on the Munich and Paris Orly routes, respectively.

The publication of these results follows Tuesday’s announcement by Airports Council International that Malta International Airport had claimed the second place from among European counterparts in its Airport Service Quality awards.

Malta International Airport said it is now looking ahead to unveiling a new flight schedule boasting more than 100 destinations towards the end of March to coincide with the start of summer for the aviation industry.