Malta International Airport welcomed 316,713 passengers in March, 44.1 per cent below the traffic handled by the airport during the same period in 2019 before the onset of COVID-19.

The figure brings traffic for the first quarter of 2022 up to nearly 673,000 passenger movements.

The airport said on Monday that the number of seats available on flights to and from Malta remained 35.4 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, while the seat load factor (SLF), which measures the occupancy of these seats, averaged at 65.5 per cent for the first quarter of the year.

This was 10.2 per cent below 2019 levels.

The market leaderboard for the first three months of the year saw the Italian market occupy the top spot with just under 125,000 passenger movements. The UK followed with nearly 119,000 passenger movements, while France, Germany and Poland registered a cumulative total of 174,838 passenger movements.

Out of these top five markets, the UK and Poland announced the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions on travel to the respective countries in March. A total of 14 countries that are currently connected to Malta International Airport have removed their restrictions.

"While the European airport group’s results for the first quarter of 2022 are not available yet, results for January and February show that Malta was still recovering at a slower pace than its direct competitors," MIA said. 

On April 4,  Health Minister Chris Fearne announced a series of new guidelines including that PCR tests and recovery certificates will now be allowed for travel, thus enabling people who are not fully vaccinated to travel.

MIA had welcomed the measure but warned it was not enough, saying it should be the first step towards the complete lifting of the country’s COVID-19 restrictions on travel.