Passenger traffic through Malta International Airport for the month of April has increased by 50 per cent since 2015, MIA said in a statement.

Last April kept the airport team very busy with a total of 591,283 passenger movements.

Aircraft movements and seat capacity saw an increase of 18.8 per cent and 18.5 per cent respectively during the month of April. Futhermore, seat load factor (SLF), which measures seat occupancy on flights, stood at 80.1 per cent.

Cumulatively, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, and Spain accounted for over 400,000 passenger movements. All of these markets registered growth, with Spain’s 39.7 per cent increase being the strongest by far from these top five markets.

The performance of the Spanish market was largely driven by Malta International Airport’s launch of three new Spanish routes; Bilbao, Malaga, and Seville, and the introduction of a better flight frequency on the Barcelona route.