Malta International Airport, listed on the Malta Stock Exchange, this week downward revised its forecast for passenger movements this year by 6.8 per cent to 2.9 million.

The airport cited the “aftermath of the considerable drop in May and June” as the reason behind the downward revision.

“However,” the company said in a statement, “the overall performance is better than that registered in the same period of 2007 and, more importantly, the situation so far is only slightly below the recorded European average.”

In the first six months of the year, the airport handled 1.25 million passengers – a 10.9 per cent decrease (153,755 passengers) compared with the same period in 2008.

Aircraft movements, meanwhile, decreased by 7.2 per cent and seat capacity by 6.8 per cent. Similarly, the seat load factor decreased from 68.9 per cent to 65.9 per cent over the past six months. Cargo and mail activity, meanwhile, decreased by 12.2 per cent and totalled 8,119 tons handled.

Over the period, national airline Air Malta represented 56.7 per cent of the airport's market share – equivalent to 710,070 passenger movements – whereas Ryanair carried 14.8 per cent of MIA's passengers- equivalent to 185,279 passenger movements.

Easyjet registered a 24 per cent increase, which translates into a total of 71,992 passenger movements to date. Emirates also increased its figures considerably, registering a 48 per cent increase, or 52,056 passenger movements as against 35,275 for the same period last year.

The traditional markets of UK, Italy and Germany are still in the lead, although they each registered respective reduuctions of 10.7 per cent, 3.7 per cent and 17.2 per cent.