The overwhelming impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the aviation industry has been highlighted by the 99.64% drop in passenger numbers through Malta International Airport during April compared to last year.

MIA said that while passenger traffic had already decreased significantly in March, the situation at Malta International Airport continued to deteriorate in April, which was the first full month to see air traffic to and from the airport come to an almost complete standstill.

MIA CEO Alan Borg said, last month, we handled just 2,370 passengers, which is roughly equivalent to the number of passengers usually processed in an hour on a typical day in summer. The road to pre-Covid figures will doubtlessly be a long and hard one, but I am optimistic that if all stakeholders continue to pull the same rope and remain open to taking the necessary measures, customer confidence will gradually be restored and the demand for travel will recover.”

The decline in passenger numbers for the month of April was observed in parallel with drops of 94.30% in aircraft movements and 98.35% in seat capacity. Seat load factor (SLF) for the month of April stood at a very low 18.8%, MIA said.

Following the ban of all inbound commercial flights towards the end of March, Malta International Airport said that it then continued to focus on its role in facilitating essential travel.

In April, there were 73 repatriation flights to and from eight countries including the UK, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. Moreover, flights carrying freight registered an increase of 39.8% over the same month in 2019 to total 186 aircraft movements.

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