Malta International Airport has announced that it hosted 8.6 per cent more passengers in August than it did during the same month last year, making this the busiest month ever.

In a single month, Malta International Airport welcomed a total of 551,179 passengers, which is equivalent to a hundred thousand more people than the entire Maltese population.

“We’re extremely pleased to announce another record-breaking month for MIA. The airport has shown signs of steady growth during the first half of 2014 and enjoyed an incredibly busy summer,” said CEO Markus Klaushofer.

MIA said that this growth was the result of an unprecedented increased in the number of aircraft seats being taken up, resulting in a seat load factor of 86.5 per cent. The seat capacity, which refers to the number of available seats to and from Malta, increased by 6.6 per cent, while flight movements also rose by 5.1 per cent.

“August’s success was due to marked growth in some of the airport’s major markets namely the UK, France, Germany and Italy,” said Mr Klaushofer.

Italy was the market that saw the highest growth in passenger traffic – an increase of 16.5 per cent. This was due to the new routes added for the summer period. Meanwhile, traffic from Germany and France grew by 10.4 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively, followed by the UK, which grew by 8.7 per cent.

The maximum take-off weight (MTOW) increased by 7.1 per cent and cargo mail in-creased by 4.6 per cent.

Between January and August, Malta International Airport hosted more than 2.9 million passengers marking an 8 per cent increase over the same months last year.

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