By the first week of November, over six million passengers had moved through Malta International Airport, a significant increase over last year’s number.

Last year, MIA hit the six millionth passenger milestone on the very last day of 2017 – but this year hit it nearly two months earlier.

“The winter season is off to a strong start at Malta International Airport, with November traffic reaching 453,563 passengers movements and registering an increase of 11.8% over the same month last year. Passenger movement peaked on the 4th of November, which was the same day year-to-date traffic through Malta International Airport hit the 6 million passenger mark, surpassing the record-breaking 6,014,548 passenger movements recorded between January and December last year,” an MIA representative said in a statement.

MIA are attributing the record numbers to a “robust” winter schedule

This growth in passenger numbers was driven mainly by the launch of a winter schedule that features more flights to the more popular destinations from Malta, alongside an extension of 12 summer routes into the winter season.

The top five markets to Malta remained the same

The United Kingdom held on to the top spot, and was closely followed by Italy, Germany, France, and Spain.

Four out of the five markets enjoyed a significant growth during November, ranging from 7.4% in the case of the United Kingdom to 66.5% in the case of Spain.

Spanish visitors significantly increased, while German visitors decreased by a bit

MIA said that the extension of the Seville, Valencia, and Malaga routes into winter, alongside more flights to Barcelona, had really paid off.

Germany was the only market among the airport’s top five to end the year with a 0.8% decline in passenger movements.

If trends continue for the last few weeks of 2018 as they seem to be doing, Malta International Airport is set to close the year with another record-breaking year.

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Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]