MIA plc sees 58.2% drop in Q1-Q3 revenue compared to 2019

Malta International Airport plc has approved the Group’s financial statements for the period between January and September 2021

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Malta International Airport plc has approved the Group’s financial statements for the period between January and September 2021.

The Group’s financials reflect the challenges and uncertain environment within which Malta International Airport continues to operate.

Totalling €32.29 million, the revenue generated by the Group within the first three quarters of the year was 58.2 per cent below 2019 levels for the same comparable period.

Malta International Airport plc continued to exercise a cautious approach towards the management of its financials through a number of cost-cutting and liquidity-preservation initiatives, which were extended into 2021 from the previous year.

As a result of these initiatives, the Company lowered its staff costs by a further 21.2 per cent and brought its operating costs down by 3.7 per cent over the same period in 2020.

Malta International Airport’s continued efforts to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 crisis together with more favourable traffic results for Q3 2021 allowed the Company to close the first nine months of the year marginally in the black.

MIA has now entered the winter season, which has traditionally always been slower than the summer months in terms of passenger activity.

The Company is bracing for another tough winter, characterised by continued travel restrictions, suppressed consumer confidence, and uneven recovery levels across the aviation industry.

However, it is optimistic that the coming months will mark an improvement over winter 2020.

Passenger traffic

With 428,426 passenger movements registered, last October became Malta International Airport’s best performing month since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite this encouraging result, which can be partly attributed to the easing of more entry restrictions by government and the mid-term holiday effect, last month’s traffic was still 39.1 per cent lower than October 2019 levels.

This decline in passenger numbers over October 2019 was registered in parallel with a drop of 28.5 per cent in aircraft movements and a decrease of 27.7 per cent in seat capacity. Seat load factor (SLF), on the other hand, stood at 69.3 per cent, which translates into a drop of 13 per cent compared to the same month in 2019.

The United Kingdom, which simplified testing requirements for fully vaccinated travellers at the beginning of October, continued to top the list of MIA’s best-performing markets, registering just over 110,800 passenger movements.

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