National airline Air Malta yesterday said it was yet again the “driving force” behind this year’s tourism growth, contributing 57% of the 77,000 additional passengers who flew to Malta in the first six months of the year.
The estimates released by the National Statistics Office show 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 with traffic in June increasing by 13% – 17% if one excludes the additional traffic registered last year due to the canonisation of Dun Gorg Preca.
Air Malta chief commercial officer Brock Friesen said the airline was building on the positive results registered last winter, when for the first time in its history Air Malta transported over half a million passengers.
“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.”
Friesen attributed these figures to the continuous refinement of pricing policies, aggressive international advertising and successful direct selling on the airline’s portal.
“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 in line 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,” Friesen said.
Both Maltese travellers and tourists visiting the islands today have daily connectivity via European hubs to and 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 July, Air Malta introduced web check-in whereby customers can check in and select their seats from their home or office as early as 23 hours before their Air Malta flight.
“We are now selling well over 20% of our airline seats through our booking engine. The new online services launched together with Expedia such as hotel accommodation in Malta and abroad, booking and reservations for major attractions, shows and events, museum passes, theatre and football tickets, city tours and a host of activities happening worldwide, have become popular with our online customers. We have also launched our online travel insurance cover through the Mondial Assistance Group, a leader in this field. We are working to offer a one-stop-shop of travel related products on our portal,” Friesen said.