Air Malta grows by 34.6% in February

Air Malta has carried 34.6% more passengers this February compared to last year, a record increase during the traditionally weakest month of the year. The Maltese airline carried a total of 26,000 more passengers than February 2017.

Between November of last year to February this year, the airline reported a strong growth of 24%, making this winter season one of the most successful ever.

Commenting on the latest results, Paul Sies, Air Malta’s chief Commercial officer said: “This is excellent news for Air Mata. Although we had an excellent performance with regards to advanced bookings for the month of February, we were positively surprised that the same momentum was also retained during the month. In line with our strategy we have increased frequency on main routes and (re)introduced Frankfurt. We worked hard to fill up the additional capacity we offered to the market. Our new strategy, which included the launch of the hand luggage only fare Go-Light, which was announced last September, proved to be very popular among our guests, who are now realising that nowadays, in many cases, Air Malta offers the best fares. We are working hard to maintain this momentum in the coming months. Looking forward, the preliminary results for March are looking very promising.”

“This month will see the end of our financial year. If figures continue to improve like this, we will manage to close the financial year without any losses. This will be the first time in over 10 years,” confirmed Air Malta’s chairman Dr Charles Mangion. “We need to maintain this momentum and grow the airline, as only through additional traffic, can we achieve better financial results. These increases in traffic are not only good news for Air Malta but also for the tourism sector in general considering that the airline is contributing heavily to the strong growth in the number of tourism arrivals to the Maltese Islands,” Dr Mangion added.

Dr Konrad Mizzi, Minister for Tourism added: “During the winter months we have managed to attract considerable tourists through various new flight connections. To ensure that this strategy is successful it is imperative that the product continues to improve all year round and the number of cultural events and activities will also increase, especially during the shoulder months.”

In the last six months Air Malta launched a total of 13 new routes including three intra-European services. The airline managed to improve its aircraft utilisation significantly and is also working hard to ensure that its aircraft fly more hours with up to 12 hours in winter and 14 hours in summer, spreading the cost over more routes and increasing its revenues.