• 476,575 passengers travelled through Malta International Airport in May, +7.8% year on year
• The airport's Summer Schedule includes a record 39 airlines in its network
• All top markets registering an increase in seat capacity and passenger movements

Malta International Airport welcomed 476,575 passengers in May, translating into a growth of 7.8% over the same month last year. May's record brings the airport to its 50th consecutive month-on-month growth.

May's positive numbers were partly spurred by an increase in seat capacity of 4.9% resulting from the launch of new routes and an increase in frequencies to some popular destinations. Most notably, average seat load factors, which measure the number of filled seats on every flight, continued to climb to 81.4%, meaning airlines are operating more efficiently on their trips to Malta.

The top five traffic drivers for May remained largely unchanged, with the United Kingdom holding on to its top spot, followed by Italy, Germany, France and Poland.

The key drivers of May's growth were increased connectivity to several destinations in the UK including Birmingham, Edinburgh, Stansted and Manchester resulting in +5.3% year-on-year, while traffic to Italy grew significantly by 14.3%, mostly attributed to increased capacity on the Rome and Catania routes.

In third and fourth position, Germany and France grew by 0.6% and 1.8% respectively, while Poland also registered a 50.2% growth over May 2015, in part due to the launch of the Poznan route and an increased flight frequency to Gdansk.

An additional 164,491 passengers travelled through Malta International Airport when compared to January to May 2015, with 2016 figures almost at the 1.7 million mark so far.