Malta Airport passengers forecast to reach 3.15 million in 2010

MIA Chief Executive Julian Jaeger announced this while presenting the company’s half-yearly results for this year during a press conference this afterooon.

Jaeger explained how in January, MIA was only forecasting an increase of 3% in passenger movements when compared to last year, but had already revised its forecast to 6% in March after seeing the figures of the first three months of 2010.

If achieved, these figures would be even better than those reached by MIA in 2008, when it was a record year for MIA in terms of passenger movements.

After suffering a drop of 6% in passenger movements in April of 6% as a result of the volcanic ash on Iceland, there was a substantial growth in passenger movements both in May and June with an increase of 19.3% during both months (307,195 for May and 331,335 for June).

The results for the first six months of the year in terms of passenger movements therefore show an increase of 10.3% when compared to the same period last year, reaching 1,380,828 passenger movements.

Flight movements and seat capacity for the month of June increased by 14.8% and 17.3% respectively over June 2009, primarily due to the new routes that were launched this year.

During the first six months of 2010, Air Malta increased its passengers by 2 per cent (14,000) when compared to the same period last year, reaching 724,342 passengers.

Ryanair had a substantial increase of 47% (87,000) in passengers when compared to the same period last year, reaching 272,454 passengers thanks to the various new routes added this year.

Likewise, Easyjet had an increase of 69% (49,751 passengers) when compared to the same period last year as a result of its new routes to Malta this year, reaching 121,743 passengers.

Alitalia also registered an increase of 10% (2,342 passengers) when compared to the same period last year, reaching 36,880 passengers.

Finally, Thomson Fly also registered an increase of 8.6% (1,347) during the first six months of 2010 when compared the same period last year, reaching 22,832 passengers.

On the other hand, Emirates registered a drop of 18% in passengers (9,171 passengers) when compared to the same period last year, reaching 42,885 passengers.

Likewise, Thomas Cook also registered a drop of 8% when compared to the same period last year, registering 22,832 passengers.

Finally, Jet Time registered a drop of 7% when compared to the same period last year, reaching 13,509 passengers.

Concurrently, the average seat load factor rose by 1.1% over the corresponding period. The maximum take-off weight (MTOW) for June was 14.5% higher than last year, whilst cargo dropped by 5.9% when compared to the same period in 2009.

This was mainly brought about by a substantial increase in seat capacity, equivalent to 8.5%, coupled with the strengthening of the average seat load factor by 1% when compared to the same period last year.

During the first six months of 2010, the share of flag carriers decreased by 16.3% to 164,907 passengers when compared to the same period last year.

On the other hand, the market share for LCC soared by 53.9% or to 416,000 passengers when compared to the same period last year.

The market share for charter aircraft remained almost constant with an increase of 0.9% to 74,857 passengers.

The core markets all registered significant increases in June with Spain, Italy and France growing by an outstanding 138%, 40% and 39% respectively, whilst the United Kingdom and Germany grew by a more modest 7% and 5%.

Likewise, the three top destinations also registered positive results with Gatwick, Fiumicino and Manchester growing by 1.7%, 51% and 1.7%. On the other hand London Heathrow and Frankfurt decreased marginally by 2.6% and 0.5% respectively.