Malta International Airport registered a passenger traffic decline of 16.1% in the first quarter, when compared with the same period last year, it said in a company announcement on the Malta Stock Exchange.

Consequently, its revenue for the first three months of the year decreased by 17.5% and amounted to €12.8 million. 

This drop stemmed from “the debilitating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic” on both the group’s aviation and non-aviation activities, with this impact being most noticeable towards the end of the quarter when stringent measures, including a travel ban, were put in place.

Malta introduced flight restrictions in early March and banned all incoming flights except for repatriation and cargo flights roughly 10 days later. 

Total operating expenditure for the first quarter decreased from €8.3 million in Q1 2019 to €7.8 million in Q1 2020, representing a drop of 5.9%, primarily the result of a series of cost-cutting measures implemented by the group in an effort to mitigate the adverse impact of the current unprecedented crisis on the business. 

The group’s capital expenditure for the first quarter of the year totalled €1.8 million. 

MIA said its aviation and non-aviation activities in a scenario characterised by a travel ban to and from Malta, remained very limited. 

Accordingly, its revenue generation remained significantly impaired when compared to normalised operations. This was further compounded by the uncertainty of the duration of the current situation which rendered the short-term outlook for the group negative.   

The group said it shall be keeping the situation under close review and scrutiny as it evolved.

Apart from measures already taken with a view to counter the overall adverse impacts of COVID-19 and the restrictions imposed on its business, it would be prepared to take other measures aimed at supporting further the resilience of the group’s financial condition and other initiatives to react with immediacy once the travel ban was lifted.  

The group reiterated that, notwithstanding the adverse impact which the current COVID-19 situation had brought about, the directors had reason to believe that, with the measures taken so far and others planned to be taken should the need arise, the company was sufficiently resilient to be able to sustain the current conditions.

They were also confident that, during the current financial year, it had sufficient resources to meet all of its financial obligations.