September traffic through Malta International Airport saw a drop of 83.1 per cent compared to the same month in 2019, with passenger movements totalling 128,664.

With travel still suffering the fallout of COVID-19, aircraft movements and seat capacity decreased by 57.9 per cent and 59.9 per cent respectively. Seat load factor (SLF) for the month registered a drop of 49.9 percentage points to stand at just 36.3 per cent, MIA said in a statement on Thursday.

The top markets in September were Germany, which still saw a drop of 71.4 per cent, Italy (-83.1 per cent), the United Kingdom (-89.2 per cent), France (-73.1 per cent) and Austria (-55.4 per cent).

The figures mean that passenger traffic in the third quarter of the year was down by 77.6 per cent when compared to the same period in 2019.

A slight recovery was seen in the first half of August, with passenger numbers increasing by 64.9 per cent over July 2020, MIA said. 

But the introduction of Malta’s amber list (the list of countries with medium risk of COVID-19) together with other travel restrictions led to a downward trend in the second half of August, which persisted in September.

September traffic was approximately half of the traffic registered in August. 

MIA noted that the Airports Council International has predicted that European airports will end the year with a loss of 1.69 billion passengers translating into a drop of 69 per cent over 2019.