Malaysia Airports records int’l traffic growth across all regions

Passengger walking through the arrival information board at KLIA2 after member of the media waiting the arrival of flight from Beijing after two Malaysian under the World Food Program, Stella Lim and Nyanaprakash Muniandy allowed to leave Pyongyang. AZMAN GHANI / The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) recorded growth in international passenger traffic for all regions last month, the first time since Malaysia Airlines cut frequencies and routes in 2015.

MAHB, in its latest monthly passenger traffic snapshot update to Bursa Malaysia, said there was a 5.0% overall growth in passenger traffic at its airports in Malaysia in February to 7.3 million.

The international sector recorded an 8.3% year-on-year (y-o-y) rise to 3.7 million passengers while the domestic sector saw 3.6 million passengers, up 1.8%.

Drilling down to the international traffic, MAHB said this was the first positive for Europe after more than a year.

The airport operator also noted that there was significant increase in China and India nationalities traffic, likely contributed by visa relaxation.

“Passenger traffic to and from 18 countries registered double-digit growth, including the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Laos, Pakistan, New Zealand, Oman, Nepal, Mauritius, Kazakhstan and Japan which registered more than 20% growth,” it said.

International traffic for Asean countries grew 6.9% to 1.8 million passengers whereas non-Asean traffic posted a 9.6% growth to 1.9 million passengers.

Overall aircraft movements increased by 0.5%. Overall average load factors improved to 75.5% in February, an increase by 1.3 percentage points compared with the same month last year.

Eighteen airlines registered double-digit growth for international passenger traffic. They include Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia X, All Nippon Airways, Malindo, Xiamen Airlines, and Oman Air.

For the total MAHB system (including Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Turkey), there was a 6.4% y-o-y growth in international passenger traffic to 4.3 million in February.

The overall total was dragged down by a 3.1% drop in Istanbul SGIA international traffic. MAHB said Istanbul SGIA’s traffic performance was partly affected by heavy fog and bad winter that resulted in many flight cancellations

The total MAHB system’s domestic passenger figure, meanwhile, slipped 0.7% to 5.0 million passengers.