During the month of September, Malta International Airport (MIA) registered a 10.4 per cent increase over 2023 passenger figures, it announced on Monday.

In total, the airport saw “another strong month “with a total of 894,471 arrivals and departures. This means that year-to-date traffic stands at 6.89 million passenger movements, reflecting a 15.5 per cent increase over the previous year.

Travel peaked early in the month, with the busiest day falling on Sunday 1st September, handling more than 33,000 passengers on the day.

While seat capacity deployed by the airlines climbed 9.1 per cent over the preceding year to reach 993,672 seats, the seat load factor (SLF) “stood at an all-time high for September at 90.2 per cent, reflecting strong occupancy rates on flights to and from Malta,” the airport shared.

With a market share of over 23 per cent, Italy continued to top the market leaderboard with 213,529 passenger movements, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Poland. The latter was registered as the fastest-growing market at 55.8 per cent.

While four out of five top-performing markets for September outperformed their respective 2023 results, France was the only market to fall just 2.9 per cent short of reaching last year’s levels.

MIA attributes the decline to aircraft operating with fewer seats and a minimal drop in SLF.

The most popular airport that passengers came from during the month was London Gatwick, with 50,740 passenger movements.

Cargo and Mail for the month reached 1,952 tonnes.

The September figures also coincided with the release of its flight schedule for the upcoming autumn-winter season.

This includes the commencement of thrice-weekly operations to Dublin by a new airline, Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus, and the extension of Eurowings’ Düsseldorf route into winter.