The Malta International Airport saw 379,073 passenger movements in February, doubling its traffic when compared to the same month last year, the airport said in a statement on Friday. 

Despite February being a 28-day month, the MIA said that it was only 262 passenger movements below the traffic recorded in January, signaling encouraging results for the winter season. 

MIA hit its peak traffic on February 18 with 17,531 passenger movement, right when carnival celebrations and school mid-term holidays were in full swing. A seat load factor (SLF) of 88% was recorded during carnival weekend, they said. 

February's average SLF stood at 82.6%, a 6.8% increase over the seat occupancy registered by the MIA in February 2019. 

Italy, the United Kingdom and France retained their top positions as the most popular destination, while Germany move up a place to rank fourth and Poland placing in fifth.  

The airport added that earlier this week Airports Council International had issued traffic results for January 2023 and observed that European traffic had come closest to making a full recovery since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.