MIA expecting a 1.5% increase in tourist traffic in 2013

Malta International Airport said that it forecasts a 1.5% increase of passenger numbers for 2013, when compared to 2012, which was a record year itself.

This means that MIA will welcome 3.7 million passengers, an increase of 50,000 over last year.

This announcement was made by Chief Executive Officer, Markus Klaushofer at a news conference during which he analysed the traffic results achieved in 2012, which ended with an increase of 4.1% over 2011.

"The forecast for 2013 is based on various considerations which include the flight schedules committed as well as the European economic crisis which is expected to continue to impact demand for travel, particularly in Malta's core markets - UK, Italy, Germany, France and Spain," Klaushofer said.

The airport's CEO highlighted the fact that 2012 was the third consecutive record year, and the fourth out of the last five. He added that the Austrian based company continued with its efforts in keeping Malta attractive for airlines through its updated Incentive Scheme, which included the waiving of landing fees in the winter for the second consecutive year, the waiving of the night surcharge all year round, free aircraft parking for scheduled passenger flights all year round, as well as further incentives for non-EU traffic.

He added that the new routes for 2013 will be the Monarch operation to East Midlands in the UK, airBaltic's weekly flight to Riga in Latvia, Ryanair's announced new destinations: Liverpool (UK), Bergamo (Italy) and Gothenburg (Sweden), as well as the added capacity by Lufthansa on its Frankfurt (Germany) operation.

Referring to the Traffic Results of 2012, Klaushofer noted that aircraft movements at Malta Airport increased slightly by 182 which is 0.6% more when compared to 2011 whilst seat capacity increased by almost 50,000, which is equivalent to 1.1%.

Air Malta, kept the lion's share of the market and had 1,660,545 passenger movements, registering a negligible decrease of 1.1% on figures registered in 2011, and which resulted in a share of 45.5% of total traffic.

The national airline was followed by Ryanair with a traffic share of 25.4% equivalent to 925,880 passenger movements meaning an increase of 17.6% and easyJet with a traffic share of 8.8% equivalent to 319,601 passenger movements meaning a decrease of 6.3%.

Malta Airport's main markets for 2012 were the United Kingdom with a share of 30% translating into 1,106,436 passenger movements, +1.9% over 2011.

This was followed by Italy with 17% or 619,575 passenger movements, i.e. +0.5% over 2011; and Germany with 15% or 539,119 passenger movements, resulting in an increase of 3.5% over last year.

Legacy carriers have increased their passenger numbers marginally by 0.8%, with their overall market share registering a decrease of 1.8 percentage points to 57% (62% in 2010, 58.8% in 2011).

Low Cost carriers increased their market share by two percentage points to 36.4% (32% in 2010, 34.4% in 2011) with an increase of 10.1% in passenger movements. Charter operations have retained their 7% share from total traffic as in 2011 (6% in 2010) with an increase of 2% in their passenger movements.

Klaushofer said: "the challenge for 2013 is to sustain the growth achieved thus far, continue with our investment in airline marketing efforts and consolidate these results, especially in the Retail & Property segment which will also see the first full year of operation of SkyParks Business Centre."