Nearly 1.25 Million Passengers at Malta International Airport in 1st Quarter of 2023
In a statement released on April 12, the airport revealed that of this figure, in March alone, 487,117 passenger movements were also registered, marking a two per cent increase compared to the figures before the pandemic, AtoZSerwisPlus.mt reports.
Data provided by the airport also show that this figure has increased due to the release of pent-up demand for air travel, which has also been reflected in high seat load factors (SLF) over the past few months. As a result, the SLF for the month of March was 83.5 per cent, thus gaining 2.2 per cent compared to the levels of 2019.
Among the most popular markets during March were countries such as Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Poland, which accounted for 63 per cent of this month’s traffic.
The UK and Germany were the markets which continued to perform below 2019 levels, while the other three recorded varying levels of growth.
However, despite passenger numbers to and from Germany remaining below pre-pandemic levels, an improved SLF of 90 per cent helped it overtake France to rank third.
Based on the data of the National Statistics Office of Malta, in January of this year, Malta registered a total of 136,167 tourists, with total nights spent reaching 1,031,718.
The same source said that during January 124,151 incoming tourists visited Malta for leisure purposes, while another 7,764 came for business purposes.
Regarding age, a percentage of 41.1 per cent of incoming tourists belonged to the 25-44 age group, followed by the 45-64 age group with 31.2 per cent.
Moreover, among the countries that made up the largest number of incoming tourists were Italy, the UK and Poland, with 42.2 per cent.
According to these statistics, during January 2023, the number of nights spent in Malta increased by 79.0 per cent compared to the same month of 2022, passing one million nights. Thus, a total of 79.2 per cent of tourists spent their nights in rental accommodation facilities with an average length of stay of 7.6 nights.
Last year, Malta again reached pre-pandemic levels by 83 per cent in terms of visitor numbers, with a total of 2.3 million.
During this period, the volumes of the Polish, Austrian, Italian and French markets also exceeded 2019 levels.
At the same time, international tourists spent €2 billion. However, in 2022 the total expenditure per capita decreased to €880 from €899 in 2021.
