In the first week of April, Malta International Airport welcomed the first Ryanair flights from nine new destinations.

Four new routes will be serving the airport's two largest markets, the United Kingdom and Italy, through direct connections between Malta and Exeter in England, Cardiff in Wales, and Perugia and Lamezia in central and southern Italy, respectively.

Ryanair will also be driving passenger traffic from newer markets towards the Maltese Islands through a direct route to Maastricht in the Netherlands.

Maltese holidaymakers looking to explore Europe further in the coming months will have the opportunity to fly directly to popular summer destinations, including Thessaloniki in Greece, or escape to the quieter, greener lands of Cork in Ireland.

Other new routes include Oslo in Norway and Amman in Jordan.

Between April and October, Ryanair will be operating flights on eight of its new routes on a twice-weekly basis. Torp will be reachable from Malta International Airport every Wednesday throughout the summer period.

Ryanair is not the only airline set to expand its operations to and from the Maltese Islands.

With a direct route to Hungary’s Debrecen Airport operated by WizzAir launched last Sunday, and three additional routes operated by Volotea and Qatar Airways scheduled to launch in the second week of June, this year’s summer schedule, which can be downloaded from the airport’s website, is expected to be instrumental in helping the airport reach its passenger traffic goals for 2019.