Over 10 million airport passengers

TL;DR

In a company announcement to the Malta Stock Exchange on 14 January 2026, Malta International Airport plc said that December traffic “brought full-year traffic for 2025 up to 10,061,969 passenger movements, marking a 12.3% increase over the previous year.” We checked the figure against Eurostat’s airport statistics.

1. The figure is right. Eurostat records 10,070,972 passengers carried through Malta’s airport in 2025, 0.09% more than the company’s figure, and 8,968,239 in 2024: an increase of 12.3%, as stated.
2. 2025 was the first year above 10 million. Traffic was 7.3 million in 2019 and 7.8 million in 2023; it has grown 38% since 2019.
3. “Passenger movements” are not travellers. Each arrival and each departure is counted, so a visitor or resident on a return trip counts twice. The company’s public pages sometimes say “passengers” for the same number; its stock-exchange text says “passenger movements”, which is accurate.
4. Verdict: supported (high confidence). The company’s figure and growth rate are confirmed by independent statistics.

1. Supported
2. Largely supported
3. Not substantiated
4. Misleading
5. Contradicted

IN THIS REPORT

1 The claim and what we could verify

The claim record came from the company’s “Facts and Figures” page, which on 5 October 2026 still said the airport was “eyeing 9.3 million passenger movements by the end of 2025”, an outdated forecast. The company’s statement of the outcome is its full-year traffic update, company announcement 461/2026 of 14 January 2026 [1], read in full. Lovin Malta reported a Facebook post by the company on 30 December 2025 saying it had handled “a record 10 million passengers” [2].

2 Method

Question. Did Malta’s airport handle more than 10 million passenger movements in 2025, and did traffic grow by 12.3%?

Evidence. We downloaded Eurostat’s air passenger transport for Malta (avia_paoc, updated 2 October 2026), 2015–2025 (tools/cc-100-report/fetch.py), recorded the company’s figures from its announcement (data/cc-100/mia_announcements.csv) and compared them (calc.py; outputs in data/cc-100/checks.csv). Eurostat’s “passengers carried” counts arriving and departing passengers at the reporting airport, the same concept as the company’s “passenger movements”. Malta has one airport, so the national figure is the airport’s.

Grades. Official statistics, grade C; the company’s figure is its own report. No literature is needed. Verdicts follow the five-point scale in Appendix A.

3 What the data show

Traffic passed 10 million for the first time in 2025. Eurostat’s total exceeds the company’s by 9,003 passengers (0.09%), a difference of the kind expected between an operator’s count and the statistical return. 29% of 2025 passengers flew to or from airports outside the EU.

4 What the figure does not say

The claim is about traffic, not about its effects. Ten million movements are roughly five million return journeys by visitors and residents. Growth in air traffic bears on other claims in this project: the airport’s carbon-neutrality claim (CC-030), the growth of tourism (CC-083 to CC-085) and the pressure of visitor numbers on infrastructure (CC-089). This check does not assess any of those.

5 Testing the claim

6 Verdict and requests for evidence

Why. Both numbers reproduce from Eurostat within a tenth of a percent. What this verdict does not say. It does not say whether the growth is good or sustainable; it confirms a count.

Evidence we are asking for

• From the company: an update of its Facts and Figures page, which still shows the 2025 forecast of 9.3 million.

7 Limitations

• Eurostat’s and the company’s counts can differ slightly in their treatment of transit and transfer passengers; the difference here is 0.09%.
• We did not read the company’s Facebook post itself, only Lovin Malta’s report of it.

References

1. [1] Malta International Airport plc (14 Jan 2026). Full-Year Traffic Update. Company announcement 461/2026. https://maltairport.com/app/uploads/2026/01/Full-Year-Traffic-Update.pdf
2. [2] Lovin Malta (30 Dec 2025). Malta International Airport Records Milestone Year With 10 Million Passengers. https://lovinmalta.com/malta/malta-international-airport-records-milestone-year-with-10-million-passengers/
3. [3] Eurostat. Air passenger transport by type of schedule, transport coverage and country (avia_paoc), updated 2 Oct 2026, retrieved 5 Oct 2026. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/avia_paoc/default/table
4. [4] MiŻien. Calculation script and outputs: tools/cc-100-report/calc.py; data/cc-100/checks.csv.

Appendix A: series standards and verdict scale

Every investigation in this series follows the same rules so that verdicts are comparable and challengeable.

Confidence

High: multiple independent lines of evidence agree. Moderate: evidence is relevant but incomplete or indirect. Low: evidence is thin, second-hand or conflicting.

Evidence grades

A experiment · B observational study with a control or gradient · C review, guidance or official statistics · D assertion or anecdote. ◆ marks a source known only second-hand.

Standards

• Quote the speaker, not the headline, with outlet and date, and link the original where possible.
• Separate the claim from the evidence offered for it, and say who made which statement.
• Grade the evidence and show differing views side by side where the evidence is unsettled.
• State what we could not access or verify, and what would change the verdict either way.
• Ask for the missing evidence in specific, answerable requests.
• Offer a right of reply where a check finds a claim Not substantiated, Misleading or Contradicted (or a pledge Not measurable, Off track or Missed), before wider circulation, and append responses.
• Correct errors openly with a version number and change log.
• Whistle-blow only on evidence: a verdict of Misleading or Contradicted requires documents or data that can be shown, not inference.
• Check every side. Government, opposition, NGOs and developers are held to the same standard.

Appendix B: revision log