Malta International Airport figures for February show a 5.3 per cent increase in arrivals in February compared to last year, and a 3.9 per cent increase in departures.

In both cases, arrivals at 68,000 and departures at 63,000, are still some way below the 2000 and 2001 record figures.

In detail, the figures show a decrease of 2.1 per cent in UK passengers, a 5.5 per cent increase in Germans and a 25.2 per cent increase in arrivals from mainland Italy, doubtlessly also because of Ryanair’s flights from Pisa. At 20,000 passengers from Italy, this country has now supplanted Germany as the second destination from Malta.

Passenger movements to Gatwick have decreased by 5.7 per cent, those to Manchester by 21.2 per cent and those to Heathrow by 8.1 per cent.

On the other hand, however, there were 8,388 passenger movements from Luton with Ryanair and 2,909 from Ireland (equally Ryanair), an increase in the latter of 372 per cent!