MAHB's Malaysian airports achieve best passenger traffic growth

SEPANG, 26 Sept -- Operasi di kedua-dua terminal Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur (KLIA) dan KLIA2 dilihat terkawal meskipun terdapat penutupan ruang udara Kuala Lumpur bagi kaji selidik udara yang bermula hari ini. Menurut satu kenyataan Malaysia Airlines (MAS) pada minggu lalu berikutan kaji selidik berkenaan penerbangannya yang berlepas dan mendarat di KLIA antara 26 dan 29 Sept telah dijadual semula. Kenyataan syarikat penerbangan itu menyatakan penutupan ruang udara itu membabitkan penerbangan tiba dan berlepas antara 11 pagi dan 11.59 pagi serta antara 2 petang dan 2.59 petang. -- fotoBERNAMA (2016) HAK CIPTA TERPELIHARA

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) airports in the country recorded in September its first double-digit growth in monthly passenger traffic for 2016, with a 12.3% growth compared with September 2015.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia on Monday, MAHB said the 0.4% drop recorded at its Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA), however, pulled down the passenger traffic growth for its overall system of airports to 8.6%.

On the domestic front, MAHB registered 7.48 million passengers in September 2016. Istanbul SGIA, meanwhile, attracted 2.73 million passengers.

“Almost all MAHB’s airports recorded positive growth with 10 airports registering double-digit growth in the range of 11% to 25%. All the five international airports (in Malaysia) registered high growth rates ranging from 10% to 46%,” it said.

Kota Kinabalu International Airport registered the highest growth for international traffic over September 2015 at 46%. In addition, the airport’s domestic traffic grew by 11%.

MAHB noted that all the local airlines experienced double-digit growth for international traffic. 

“Malindo Air grew by 50%, while AirAsia and Malaysia Airlines Bhd registered a 10% growth respectively. This is the first positive growth for Malaysia Airlines Bhd for 2016,” it said.

MAHB (including Istanbul SGIA’s passenger traffic) is likely to achieve its best performance in the fourth quarter, and this is expected to result in “an optimistic growth” for the whole of 2016, MAHB said.