Airport passenger figures last increased by 10.6 per cent over the same month last year, Malta International Airport said in a statement on the Malta Stock Exchange.

It said this was equivalent to an additional 27,250 passenger movements.

The airport said seat capacity increased by 9.4 per cent due to increased route frequency, while the number of occupied seats on flights also increased from 80 per cent to 81.3 per cent.

The top five destinations saw one major shift in which Turkey displaced Switzerland after achieving a 63.4 per cent rise in passengers due to increased flights to Istanbul.

Two of the airport’s top five markets, France and Germany, saw a dip in traffic numbers of 3.6 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.

The other markets outperformed the same period last year, with

Italy registering an 18 per cent increase in passengers and the UK market increasing by 1.9 per cent.

Spain also bolstered its traffic figures by more than double as a result of new operations to and from Barcelona this winter.

The maximum take-off weight increased by 12.5 per cent.

Cargo and mail also marked an increase of 11.5 per cent, reaching 1,476 tonnes.

MIA said that overall traffic figures showed that more than 300,000 additional journeys started and ended at MIA this year. Passenger movements rose by 7.6 per cent, aircraft movements by 6.4 per cent, cargo and mail by 3.4 per cent, and seat capacity by 5.6 per cent.