Malta International Airport registered a 38% decline in traffic in the first 17 days of March when compared to the same days in 2019, it said in a statement on the Malta Stock Exchange.

Flight cancellations led to a drop of 14% in seat capacity between March 1 and 17, with seat loads experiencing a drop of 22.4 percentage points as travel demands continued to weaken.

Every day within the week from March 11 to 17 registered significant drops in passenger traffic, with the last seven days posting a decrease of 62% in passenger movements over the same period in March last year.

Excluding the markets impacted by the government’s recent travel ban, namely Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland, MIA’s other markets experienced a decline of 38% in passenger movements during this week.

The United Kingdom, the airport’s top market, registered a drop of 36% in the last seven days over last year.

What is the outlook?

Given the authorities’ decision to suspend all inbound commercial flights as of March 20 at 11.59pm, the company expects the situation to deteriorate even further over the coming weeks. It will continue to closely monitor the situation, but its ability to assess the full impact of COVID-19 on the business remains limited due to the fluidity of the situation.

The company said it does not expect to meet its original yearly targets. It said it will issue other market updates as the situation develops.   

Annual general meeting postponed

Due to the current extraordinary circumstances, the company’s board of directors unanimously agreed to postpone its annual general meeting, originally scheduled for May 13, to July 29.  

Extraordinary board meeting

The company will also hold an extraordinary board meeting on April 22, by when it is expected that the board will have greater visibility of the evolving state of affairs surrounding the COVID-19 virus outbreak and its impact on the company.