Increase in seat load factor continues

Seat capacity for the month decreased to 245,231 seats, i.e. 10.6% less than February 2011. On the contrary, the average seat load factor grew by 5.5 percentage points in this same month, following a similar increase, 5.1%, registered in January.

This month's results include the extraordinary influx of traffic arrivals from Libya for a total of 5,500 passenger movements in February last year. Also factored in is the extra day (29th), due to the leap year, on which Malta Airport had 5,364 passenger movements.

The German and UAE markets grew remarkably in February, by 34.6% and 18.6% respectively, and the UK market grew by a slight 0.1%. The French and Italian market decreased by 24.6% and 14.4% respectively.

For the first two months of the year, passenger movements decreased by 2.6%, with aircraft movements decreasing by 9.6% and seat capacity decreasing by 10.2%. In the same period, the average seat load factor registered an increase of 5.2 percentage points, the minimum take-off weight (MTOW) decreased by 8.9%, whereas cargo and mail were almost the same with an increase of 1.9%.