It can be expected that 2010 will see Malta International Airport grow further, as the scheduled capacity this year is 14 per cent higher than 2009, said specialist website anna.aero.

The passenger numbers in Malta have been very flat over the last decade. A minor trough followed 9/11 and the figures achieved prior to that were only surpassed in 2008. Nonetheless, the traffic reported has been between 6.5 and 7.5 times the country’s population. The greatest growth took place in 2007, when numbers grew by 10 per cent on the previous year.

In the four months of this year, an impressive six new routes have already started to or from Malta. easyJet, Ryanair and Norwegian have all added two routes each. easyJet now offers links from its Italian bases at Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa, while Norwegian connects its two bases in Oslo and Copenhagen with the Mediterranean island. Ryanair has added flights from both Bournemouth and its new base at Leeds/Bradford.

This month, Ryanair will establish a base in Malta, basing one aircraft at the airport and thus adding six routes to its existing network of 13 destinations.

A further eight routes have been announced to start this year on other airlines. Air Malta adds Genoa, Turin and Naples in Italy as well as Damascus in Syria, while easyJet will launch flights from Liverpool, bmibaby from East Midlands, Spanair from Barcelona and SmartWings from Prague.

This summer, Air Malta will dominate with 55 per cent seat capacity, followed by Ryanair, which will be the airport’s second locally based airline. With its offering of 19 routes, Ryanair offers half as many destinations as Air Malta does. Because of lower frequencies, the Irish LCC’s capacity is, however, just over a third of that of the national carrier.