Malta Air records €679.4 million revenue in 2022 financial year

Malta Air, the Malta-based subsidiary of leading low-cost airline Ryanair, made revenue of €679.4 million in the financial year 2022, the parent company has announced.

During the airline’s financial year, which stretched from March 2021 to March 2022, the subsidiary made a net profit after income tax of €5.9 million, making it one of very few profitable areas of Ryanair’s business.

The figures are particularly promising when considering Malta Air’s financial performance a year earlier, when it made €464.2 million and a loss after income tax of €18.7 million.

Malta Air was established in 2019 as a result of an agreement between the Ministry for Tourism and Ryanair.

As part of the agreement, Ryanair would seek to “increase its Malta-based fleet to 10 aircraft within three years and create over 350 jobs” and “brand its Malta-based fleet in Malta Air colours.”

In late March, Ryanair announced it would be adding nine new destinations to its Malta service and operating 190 weekly flights to and from the country, more than 60 more than it operated prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic.

The “record-breaking schedule” is operated by six Malta-based aircrafts, representing a $600 million (€546 million) total investment.

More broadly, Ryanair recorded a mixed bag of results in its financial report, cutting losses by two thirds but still haemorrhaging €355 million during the period.

The airline carried 97.1 million carriers, more than three times as many as the previous year, while seat load factor rose to 82 per cent from 71 per cent the year before.

However, average fares fell 27 per cent to just €27, due to “COVID, Omicron, and the Ukraine invasion,” the airline reported.