PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd
(MAHB) recorded a 96.1% recovery rate to 135 million passengers in 2024, driven by strong international traffic across both Malaysia and Türkiye operations.
In a statement, the airport operator said international passenger movements for its network of airports exceeded pre-pandemic levels with a growth of 6.3%, recording 71.8 million passengers.
Domestic passenger movements reached 86.8% of 2019 levels, with 63.9 million passengers.
“The robust growth in 2024 was driven by consistent high air travel demand buoyed up by the easing of fuel price and inflation, increased in trade and business activities, favourable travel policy on visa waiver, along with airlines expansion services in resuming, adding and introducing new flights frequencies against a challenging backdrop.”
On the local front, airports managed by MAHB in Malaysia recorded strong traffic performance with 93.8 million total passenger movements, reaching 89.1% of 2019 levels.
“Traffic in Malaysia continued to show buoyancy amidst a challenging supply chain condition, resulting in the delay of new aircraft deliveries, backlog in maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services stemming from global supply chain disruptions on aircraft parts and engines.”
MAHB said Malaysia's international passenger movements are trailing closely to pre-pandemic trends, of which December recorded the peak monthly passenger movements at 4.7 million passengers.
“Nevertheless, international passenger movements for the year recorded 49.6 million passengers, reaching a new high of 93.1% recovery rate over 2019 levels, with 349 additional weekly frequencies and 12 new airlines.
“The 30-day visa waiver granted to Chinese and Indian arrivals and 15-day visa waiver for outbound Malaysia to China partly supported international growth.”
MAHB said the domestic sector continued to underpin traffic recovery, recording 44.2 million passengers, reaching 85% of 2019 levels.
“The steady growth was attributed to a surge in domestic leisure travel, propelled by high demand during the festive seasons supported by additional flights and flight ticket subsidies for tertiary level students.”
Istanbul SGIA, on the other hand, closed the year with the highest total passenger movements recorded to-date, exceeding the 40 million mark for the first time at 41.9 million passengers, with a double-digit increase of 11.7% over 2023 and 16.7% over 2019, respectively.
“International passenger movements increased by 13.3% compared to 2023, reaching 22.2 million passengers. Equally, the domestic passenger movements recorded strong growth, recording 19.8 million passengers, an increase of 10.1% over 2023.
“Istanbul SGIA passenger movements growth was partly driven by a strong demand in leisure travel sustained by the airline's route expansion to new destinations, contributing to the airport's remarkable traffic growth.”
