Malaysia Airports records 11.4m passengers in August

The international ratings agency said the change in outlook was because of the heightened operating challenges for MAHB

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB), including its Istanbul operations, recorded a 7.8% increase in August 2017 with 11.4million passenger movements, boosted by higher number of international passengers.

It said on Monday international passengers rose 15.8% with 5.5 million passengers in August while domestic passengers grew by 1.3% to 5.9 million passengers. 

On a last 12 month basis, the total MAHB network of airports registered 9.0% growth with 125.7 million passengers, the highest traffic handled over a 12 month period by the network.

On the local front, airports in Malaysia registered 8.3 million passengers in August 2017, a 9.3% year-on-year growth over August 2016.

Malaysia passenger traffic grew by 9.3% in August 2017. International traffic grew by 17.3% while domestic improved by 1.7%. The domestic sector recorded 3.9 million passengers, a growth of 1.7%.

“International traffic for Asean destinations grew 15.2% to 2.0 million passengers whereas non-Asean traffic posted a 19.1% growth to 2.4 million passengers in August 2017,” it said. 

MAHB said the KLIA Main Terminal and klia2 recorded growth of 4.4% and 21.4% respectively over August 2016 passenger numbers. 

As for its Istanbul SGIA operations, it recorded a 3.7% growth in August 2017. International and domestic traffic grew by 10.2% and 0.4% respectively. 

MAHB said overall aircraft movements increased by 4.6%. International aircraft movements grew by 14.9% while domestic aircraft movements fell 1.3% over August 2016. 

“Overall average load factor was 77.0% in August 2017, an improvement of 2.4 percentage points over August 2016,” it said.

MAHB said passenger movements at the KLIA rose by 12.5% over August 2016 with 5.1 million passenger movements. 

Of the 5.1 million, it said 1.7million passengers were recorded for the Asean destinations (17.8% growth) while two million passengers were recorded for the non-Asean destinations (15.3% growth). 

As for the domestics sector, there were 1.4 million passengers, up 2.9%. 

August traffic for KLIA Main Terminal grew by 4.4% while traffic for klia2 increased by 21.4%. 

“Overall aircraft movements at KLIA increased by 10.9% over the same month last year,” it said.

MAHB pointed out the 9.3% growth for August was mainly driven by the international traffic growth that was contributed among others by the Hajj travel season, the SEA Games Kuala Lumpur 2017, visa relaxation for India and China, competitive fares as well as favourable exchange rate for foreign tourists.