An eastward expansion of the airport's terminal building is expected to open in 2028, Malta International Airport (MIA) CEO Alan Borg told The Malta Independent on Sunday.

A major project undertaken by MIA, the expansion, which was announced in 2025, will extend the terminal by 6,000 square metres. This extension is located adjacent to the main terminal building.

Borg, who had his contract with the company extended to 2030, said that work has already begun and currently are focused on the logistical aspect of joining the new building to the present one.

Borg described the project as challenging, highlighting that while the works take place, the airport still handles 32,000 passengers per day on average during the summer months, and 22,000 passengers on average during winter.

The aim of the project is not to increase passenger numbers, he stressed, but rather to offer a better service for passengers who today use the airport. "We have no ambitions of becoming a 20 million passenger airport, that is not our aim."  

Borg explains that the current departures area is limited in size and tends to get overcrowded at times. "The most important thing for us is improving the customer experience. MIA has a responsibility, given that it runs the only airport in Malta, to ensure that every passenger welcomed through its doors has a positive experience."

Once the project concludes, circulation space in the departures section will increase. Borg said it would "effectively double" the size of the departures area and will almost double the number of check-in desks. At present there are 35 check-in desks, and this project will add a further 32.

"It will also add five more gates, as well as an additional crew gate". This new expansion will be for Schengen departures, he adds.

The addition will include more retail and food and beverage space. MIA is working with consultants on what these offerings would include, but his vision is to have a stronger Maltese focus. "For me, the fact that we need to position ourselves as a Maltese airport is front and centre in whatever we do."

"But the biggest value that the extension will bring is more space, seating and comfort within the terminal, which is our main aim with this project."

This expansion of the terminal takes up a significant portion of the €345 million investment programme that MIA announced in 2025. Borg describes it as the largest, single investment the company has ever made.

MIA is expected to unveil more details about the expansion in the coming days.

"We have also invested in other areas of the airport. With regards to the Non-Schengen area, at the end of 2023 we embarked on a project to create a new entrance for all Schengen passengers, which allowed us to dedicate an area to Non-Schengen arrivals."

This year will mark a major milestone for the tourism sector with regards to route development, with Delta Air Lines set to begin operating flights to and from New York City's John F Kennedy International Airport between June and October. Deputy Prime Minister Ian Borg had said that the new long-haul connection "will push us forward in our objective for Malta's continued shift towards a higher value-added tourism mix, in line with the objectives of the National Tourism Strategy 2030, and the country's Vision 2050." 

MIA's focus is on ensuring that this will be a successful operation, MIA CEO Alan Borg said. He stressed the significance of this new route for the hospitality sector given the quantity vs quality debate regarding tourism.

US tourists have a high average spend, the MIA CEO said, adding that this, coupled with the airport expansion being able to provide more comfort and a better experience for travellers, helps with the quality tourism aim.

Asked about other potential long-haul connections, the MIA CEO underlined that other potential connections could come about from monitoring the performance of the Malta to New York route.

"For us and the Malta Tourism Authority, having a commercially viable connection through the first American carrier flying to Malta is a very important task and we will ensure that Delta leaves satisfied with their operation at the end of October. I am sure that if this is the case, we could see Delta slowly expand the months for such flights, and we could possibly get their attention, or the attention of other airlines, to introduce more connection points to the North American market."

European connections

In terms of European connections, he said that Malta is already very well connected, with 111 destinations. "What we are doing here is working with our airline partners to try and invest in increasing flight frequencies." 

MIA's route development strategy in Europe is aimed at pushing the shoulder months with increased frequency from markets it feels there is more value in, he said. To this end, he said that the Scandinavian market is a focus. "We've seen 20% growth from 2024 to 2025, and this is a market that typically travels off-peak, and not during the summer months. So for us it is an important market, as it continues to push the shoulder and winter months." 

He added that MIA is also focused on "bridging the gap" to the German market, but said that travel in the country is going through a challenging period, even in terms of inter-Germany travel. "That being said, we are working with airlines in the German market to recover travel from the country to Malta."

Borg previously called for the introduction of more industry-wide benchmarking initiatives modelled on the Michelin Guide, in order to raise standards in the tourism sector. Asked to elaborate, he said that given its small size, Malta could look into measuring the different points of interaction tourists have with the local operators,  measuring their positive impacts and understanding the areas for improvement." This could then be used to give the different tourism sectors targets, and recognition for operators when they meet those targets.

"I feel that this would provide positive feedback and create a sense of inclusion for operators as being part of the wider tourism industry."

The vision to get more value from the tourists being attracted to the island is not something MIA, MTA or the hotel sector can do alone. "This is something that the stakeholders need to work on together in order to attain," Borg explains.

As for MIA's role in attracting higher quality tourists, Borg said that it is to ensure that Malta is connected to markets that can allow for this to happen.

He said that it is not about the type of airline people fly with - be it low cost or not - but rather about the markets it connects to. "It's about making sure that we have the right partners to connect these islands to markets that are more likely to bring high value tourists to Malta."

Asked about tourism numbers, and his predictions on the years to come, he said that while it will continue to grow, he does not think growth would be "at the same pronounced levels" as was seen in the past five years.

Technological improvements

Malta International Airport recently introduced C3 scanners, which meant that passengers are no longer required to separate liquids and electronics from the rest of their baggage, and the 100ml liquid restriction was eased.

Asked whether the MIA plans on investing in any other technology in the foreseeable future, Borg told this newsroom that the company is concentrating its efforts on ensuring that backend systems at the airport use the latest technology.

"We recently invested in important upgrades to the Airport Management System, which our team uses. It is the heart of the airport, managing our resources. We invested a lot of money to make sure we got the most recent and efficient system. Similarly, MIA is also commissioning an upgrade for the baggage tracking system," he said. These backend system investments cost around €1 million.

"While we will be investing later into biometrics and bag drops for passengers, where passengers would check-in automatically and leave their bags at a drop-off area like you can in other airports, given the capacity we have at the moment we decided to limit such investment until after we open the new check-in and departures area through the new expansion."

Asked for the number of flights the five new gates in the expansion would translate into, Borg said that the two are not intertwined. "Just because the airport welcomed a million passengers in August, does not mean it can handle 12 million passengers a year. It doesn't really work that way."

"What we have done over the past years is make sure that key infrastructure on the runway side can handle more aircraft with the extension of Apron 8, which added 8 aircraft stands and unlocked further capacity at airside. Now it is important for us to focus on the passenger experience," he said, referring to the terminal expansion. "It would be wrong to make the argument that the expansion would grow passenger numbers, it's not the aim. Numbers do play a big factor when it comes to profitability and revenue, but at the end of the day this is not the main scope of this project."

Asked whether MIA has any long-term investments planned, he said that the company has its hands full with the terminal expansion and SkyParks 2, but said that in its master plan there was space for an additional business centre, "which we may consider at a later time."