This time last year, the Malta International Airport (MIA) forecast 1% growth but it now transpires that the real growth was of 4.1% in 2012.

This time round, MIA has forecast an increase of 1.5% estimated for 2013.

It based its cautious prediction considering that Malta’s main markets, Europe, are still in crisis and it is expected the crisis will continue to affect Malta’s main markets.

GDP growth is expected to be 0.4% in the EU and 0.1% in the eurozone. Unemployment is expected to hit 10.9% in the EU and 11.8% in the eurozone.

Nevertheless, MIA chief executive officer, Markus Klaushofer said, past experience shows that people like to travel even in the midst of a crisis, especially if they find destinations nearer home and at a low cost.

Even more importantly, the Malta product is doing very well. People who visit Malta like what they find and they come again and again.

Besides, new destinations have been announced for 2013.

-          Monarch Airlines will start flying from the East Midlands around April

-          Air Baltic will start regular flights from Riga, thus adding a very important area for tourism in Malta

-          Ryanair has announced new routes to Liverpool, Bergamo and Gothenburg in Sweden. Mr Klaushofer commented that although some might think the British market versus Malta is saturated, there are still pockets of potential growth. Bergamo adds an important area of Italy and as for Sweden, the sun in Malta is even by itself an important attraction

-          Lufthansa will be adding flights to Frankfurt. Mr Klaushofer praised the professionalism of Lufthansa and the way they interacted with MIA’s marketing team.

MIA is forecasting that passenger numbers for 2013 will be around 1.5% more than the record 3.65 million achieved in 2012, that is, c. 3.7 million.

Questioned by this paper, Mr Klaushofer said he is not expecting Air Malta to add any new routes this year. The national airline is still in the midst of a delicate restructuring programme, which is doing well, but it will need more time to stabilise.

This however means, although Mr Klaushofer did not say anything in this respect, that other airlines, especially the low cost ones will find ample opportunities to increase flights to Malta if AirMalta does not do so.

The CEO highlighted the fact that 2012 was the third consecutive record year, and the fourth out of the last five. He added that the company continued with its efforts in keeping Malta attractive for airlines through its updated Incentive Scheme, which included the waiving of landing fees in the winter for the second consecutive year, the waiving of the night surcharge all year round, free aircraft parking for scheduled passenger flights all year round, as well as further incentives for non-EU traffic.

Mr Klaushofer also referred to the traffic results for 2012. Passengers passing through MIA amounted to 3.69 million, an increase of 4.1% when the growth registered in Europe amounted to just 1.9%.

Aircraft movements at Malta Airport increased slightly by 182 which is 0.6% more when compared to 2011 while seat capacity increased by almost 50,000, which is equivalent to 1.1%.

The all-important seat load factor increased by 2.3% to 78.3%. There is nothing much to do to increase this, Mr Klaushofer said. This figure means that most flights are completely full. Hence, the only solution to increase the tourism figures is through new routes.

There was a big decrease in general aviation but this was due to the stabilizing of the situation in Libya and the re-introduction of scheduled flights.

Examining the passenger figures for each month, Mr Klaushofer noted that there were considerable increases in tourists coming to Malta in the peak months. July saw a 7.1% increase over the figure the previous year; August an 8% increase and September a 6.7% increase while December saw an incredible 11.2% increase over the previous year.

It used to be said, the CEO remarked, that Malta in August cannot take in more people but the figures show that 8% more came and somehow they all found lodgings.

Air Malta had 1,660,545 passenger movements, registering a negligible decrease of 1.1% on figures registered in 2011, and which resulted in a share of 45.5% of total traffic. Air Malta, however, reduced its capacity by 2.9% but its seat load factor increased to the best figure for 17 years.

It is followed by Ryanair with a traffic share of 25.4% equivalent to 925,880 passenger movements meaning an increase of 17.6% and easyJet with a traffic share of 8.8% equivalent to 319,601 passenger movements meaning a decrease of 6.3%.

Lufthansa saw a 14.6% increase and Alitalia a 24.3% increase.

The figures for easyJet were impacted by the airline keeping its Milan and Rome operations only during the summer. The Lufthansa figures were affected by more flights to Munich while the Emirates figures were impacted by less traffic to Larnaca. Alitalia is doing well especially in its Fiumicino flights.

Malta Airport’s main markets for 2012 were once again the United Kingdom with a share of 30% translating into 1,106,436 passenger movements, +1.9% over 2011. This was followed by Italy with 17% or 619,575 passenger movements, that is, +0.5% over 2011; and Germany with 15% or 539,119 passenger movements, resulting in an increase of 3.5% over last year.

France saw a 7.3% increase to a 6% share and Spain saw a 3.2% decrease to a 5% share. In particular, the Air France flight to Toulouse is doing extremely well and is one of the airline’s success stories. The figures for Spain are a reflection of the crisis in the Spanish economy.

Legacy carriers have increased their passenger numbers marginally by 0.8%, with their overall market share registering a decrease of 1.8 percentage points to 57% (62% in 2010, 58.8% in 2011).

Low cost carriers increased their market share by two percentage points to 36.4% (32% in 2010, 34.4% in 2011) with an increase of 10.1% in passenger movements. Ryanair is easily the largest of low cost carriers operating to Malta, registering a 70% share in lcc operations, and increasing overall share to 25.4% from 22.4% while easyJet, despite the lower figures, registered an 8.8% overall share, up from 8.7% the previous year.

Charter operations have retained their 7% share from total traffic as in 2011 (6% in 2010) with an increase of 2% in their passenger movements.

Gatwick remains the most popular destination from Malta despite an 8.5% decrease, or a decrease of 23,000 passengers. It is followed by Frankfurt which saw a 3.3% increase, Fiumicino which saw a 9% decrease, Heathrow with a 4.8% decrease and Munich which saw its figures increase by 10.7%.

Concluding the news conference, Mr Klaushofer said that “the challenge for 2013 is to sustain the growth achieved thus far, continue with our investment in airline marketing efforts and consolidate these results, especially in the Retail & Property segment which will also see the first full year of operation of SkyParks Business Centre”.

Replying to questions, Mr Klaushofer agreed that Germany offers great potential for growth. The German economy is doing well and Germans are very conservative in their choices including for holidays. Germans, in general, do not mind connecting flights and in fact, Air Berlin’s passengers to Greece are now being routed through Vienna Airport.

The CEO also agreed that Russia is another area of great potential for Malta and would be a very good opportunity for Air Malta to develop, seeing its code-share agreement with Aeroflot.

See Full Year Analysis

/uploads/filebrowser/09 CEO Full-Year Analysis 2012.pdf