Passenger movements at Malta International Airport in September reached 407,917 –the highest number ever registered in September, making it the sixth consecutive record month.

The increase in passenger movements compared to the same month last year, is 6.6 per cent.

This record result in September was achieved with an increase of 3.6 per cent in seat capacity over the same period last year, with a total of 476,074 seats.

In the same month, aircraft movements increased by 3.5 per cent over the corresponding period last year, whereas the average seat load factor increased by 2.5 percentage points to reach 85.7 per cent.

The maximum take-off weight was 2.9 per cent higher than that registered in September last year, while cargo and mail was 3.6 per cent lower than that recorded during the same month in 2011.

In this same month, the Spanish market grew considerably, registering an increase of 14.7 per cent, whereas the French, Italian and UK markets grew slightly, by 2.5 per cent, 0.5 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively. The only main market to register a decrease in September when compared to same period last year was the German one, with a decrease of 5 per cent.

January – September

Passenger movement results for the first nine months of the year show an increase of 4.1 per cent when compared to the same period last year, totalling 2,896,724 passenger movements.

The increase of 2.8 percentage points in the seat load factor together with the marginal increase of 0.4% in seat capacity was the main driver of this result.

These results follow figures issued by the National Statistics Office yesterday which show record arrivals in August.