A technical issue with a baggage sorting belt at Malta International Airport led to long queues of people at the Ryanair luggage check-in desks on Wednesday morning.

Holidaymakers said they waited for up to 90 minutes to check-in and one said she almost missed her flight. 

Pictures sent to Times of Malta showed the queues of people waiting to have their luggage checked in.

The build-up of happened at around 9:20 am and was due to a technical issue related to the baggage sorting belt, an MIA spokesperson said.

“While passenger check-ins were flowing smoothly for most of the morning, a technical issue related to the baggage sorting belt, which was beyond our control, led to the build-up of queues at Ryanair desks at around 9.20 am,” she said.

Six Ryanair flights were due to depart the airport between 9 and 11 this morning to Budapest, Seville, Gdansk, Madrid, Istanbul and Bordeaux, according to the airport's flight schedule. 

The situation was addressed immediately, with normal processing times being restored within the hour, the airport spokesperson said.

It is not known if any passengers missed their flight due to the delay in luggage check-in.

The spokesperson said MIA regrets any inconvenience caused.

July and August are peak months for the airport with hundreds of thousands of passengers passing through. 

Last month, some 690,000 passengers, which is 86% of pre-pandemic traffic for July, passed through the airport. 

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