The estimates published recently by the National Statistics Office indicate that inbound tourists for the first half of the year increased by 15% to 577,313 over the same period last year.

57% of this increase was directly contributed by Air Malta that also transported 15% more inbound passengers than the previous year during the first two quarters of this year.  

In June 2008 Air Malta continued to register the same double digit growth recorded over the last eight months. Traffic in June increased by 13% (17% if one excludes the additional traffic registered last year due to the canonisation of Dun Gorġ Preca).  

Commenting on these figures, Chief Officer Commercial, Dr. Brock Friesen said, “We are building on the positive results registered last winter, when, for the first time in its history, Air Malta transported over half a million passengers. In the first half of the year the Maltese airline has yet again consolidated its position as the preferred airline amongst visitors from all European countries of origin.  

Dr Friesen added, “Figures released this month by the Association of European Airline (AEA) also confirm that Air Malta was one of the few European airlines that registered double digit growth from January till June this year. The industry figures confirm that in the first six months of the year Air Malta transported 14.6% more passengers.”  

Dr Friesen attributed these figures to the continuous refinement of pricing policies, aggressive international advertising and successful direct selling on the airline’s portal www.airmalta.com. Through enhanced distribution tools, investments in revenue management systems and reporting tools, new setups of e-business and international call centre and re-launched web portal and booking engine Air Malta is generating additional inbound traffic.  Moreover, the network is now focussed on frequent services to the richest markets, rather than once weekly services to regional points.  

“The Maltese tourism industry is strongly benefiting from Air Malta’s traffic growth. The results and outlook for July and August are also quite positive, although double digit growth figures are not projected. This is inline with the airline’s projected figures for summer as the Maltese Islands perform very well and both the airline and hotel accommodation figures are very high during peak months”,  added Friesen.  

Apart from the point to point traffic increases Air Malta is also actively pursuing other off-line markets. The existing code-share agreements with Lufthansa, Air One, and Turkish Airlines will be further consolidated with other airline partners in the next few months whereby Air Malta will continue to expand its network. Today, both the Maltese travellers and tourists wishing to visit the islands, have daily connectivity via European hubs to/from over 200 destinations worldwide.  

Air Malta has also implemented over 20 interline e-ticketing airline agreements allowing the Maltese passenger seamless travel with through check in baggage facilities.    

In the press statement, Air Malta said that is the only airline really committed towards the local tourism industry and throughout its 35 years of sterling service has shown that it is the major driving force behind the development of the local industry.