Malta International Airport plc – Interim Directors’ Statement

Malta International Airport plc announced that during the financial year commencing on 1st January 2015 and the date of this Announcement, no material events and /or transactions have taken place that would have an impact on the financial position of the Company, such that they would require specific mention, disclosure or announcement pursuant to the applicable Listing Rules, and which have not been otherwise announced through a Company Announcement. 

During the period under review, the financial position of the Company has remained sound and the performance has been marginally better than expected. Passenger traffic for the first four months of the year reached 1,085,782 movements to achieve an overall growth of 5.1% over the same period last year, equivalent to 52,630 additional passenger movements. This performance was a direct result of a 2.3% increase in seat capacity as aircraft movements reached a total of 8,644 or 2.3% more than last year. Despite the overall increase in seat capacity, seat load factor was sustained whilst also registering a 2.0 percentage point improvement during the first four months to reach an overall average of 76.1%.

The outlook for the summer season looks positive. Five new airlines will start operations to Malta. Finnair will improve our connectivity in Scandinavia with the start of two weekly flights from Helsinki. Our core market UK will continue to strengthen with Jet2 operating five routes to Malta. Russian airline Transaero will be operating a weekly flight from Moscow whist Greek private airline Aegean will introduce three weekly flights to Athens. Swiss will be the fifth new airline to start operations to Malta this year with four weekly flights from Zurich as from July. 

The retail sector of the business is recovering well after absorbing the effects of the absence of the Libyan traffic and the lower number of flights from Russia.

Subject to any unforeseen circumstances, the Directors expect the Company’s financial results for the year will be within projections made at the beginning of the year. 

To view the official company announcement, click here.