Malta International Airport reached a record 6.8 million passengers in 2018, a 13 per cent increase on the previous year, the company announced on Thursday.
The results complete a 47 per cent increase over the last three years, with the airport projecting a further increase to 7.2 million in 2019.
CEO Alan Borg said the airport’s growth meant it was significantly outpacing the average for airports in its size category, and followed a year in which its two main airlines, Ryanair and Air Malta, had both registered strong growth with several new routes.
He noted that the most popular markets - the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France and Spain - all experienced growth following the introduction of better connections in the last year.
The UK, which constitutes around a quarter of the total market, saw growth among both legacy and low cost carriers, for a total of 13.4 per cent.
Spain, meanwhile, experienced a record growth of more than a third, following Ryanair shifting its Barcelona route to the city’s main airport and further connections by Vueling.
Mr Borg said nine airlines had either extended routes originally introduced in summer into the present winter season or else increased flight frequencies on certain routes.
“While our 100-destination summer schedule was an important contributing factor to these numbers, it is encouraging to see that, for the fifth consecutive year, our shoulder and winter months have outpaced the peak summer months in terms of growth,” he said.
Summer 2019, he said, would feature 18 new developments, including the start of daily flights to Doha by Qatar Airways.
Mr Borg said MIA would continue its infrastructural investment in 2019, including work on €20 million parking village project, which will introduce 1,300 covered parking spaces on the airport campus by 2020, as well as a recent call for the submission of design concepts for the €40 million SkyParks 2 development.
Meanwhile, work is expected to continue on ambitious long-term plans to expand the terminal building, as well as the multi-million euro development of Apron 10, an additional aircraft parking area to increase the airport’s capacity.