Over 315,000 passengers travelled through the Malta International Airport last month - a drop of 36 per cent over pre-COVID numbers.

According to MIA, this was the lowest percentage drop registered since the start of the pandemic. 

This means that almost 70 per cent of the 455,802 seats available on flights to and from Malta were occupied.

MIA said in a statement on Thursday that the seat load factor for the past three months remained largely unchanged, decreasing only marginally from 70.2 per cent in September to 69.3 per cent in October and November.

After having topped Malta International Airport’s list of most popular markets for three consecutive months, the UK was outranked by Italy, which registered 60,551 passenger movements in November.

Following an absence of several months and the introduction of the Warsaw Modlin route at the beginning of November, Poland outperformed Spain and re-appeared among last month’s top five markets. Germany and France also remained on the list.     

“November’s traffic performance was in line with our expectations, however, the success of the holiday season depends on how Europe responds to the evolving epidemiological situation and the emergence of new variants," MIA CEO Alan Borg said.

"The introduction of tighter and fragmented restrictions would deal a new blow to consumer confidence, which would not only impact air travel in December but also have more far-reaching effects into 2022."