This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on September 13, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) network of airports served 11.78 million passengers in August this year, up 2.9% year-on-year (y-o-y), largely due to growth in passenger movements at its Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA) in Turkey.

Its Malaysian airports handled 0.9% more passengers y-o-y during the month at 8.46 million, while SGIA’s rose 8.5% y-o-y to 3.32 million.

“The peak traffic in August was partly due to the summer holidays in Turkey and the haj travel season,” MAHB said in a statement yesterday.

In terms of international passengers, it registered a 3.2% y-o-y growth to 5.64 million in August, while domestic passengers grew 2.7% y-o-y to 6.14 million.

“The domestic passenger movements growth was mainly contributed by AirAsia and Firefly, offsetting the continuous reduction posted by other airlines,” MAHB said.

Notwithstanding this, KLIA2 recorded a 0.6% y-o-y decline in passenger traffic due to a 3.8% decline in international passengers, which weighed on MAHB’s overall aircraft movement in its local airports, which slipped 0.4% y-o-y to 72,990.

Also contributing to the overall lower aircraft movement locally is Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s 0.2% y-o-y decline in passenger movements during the month — despite recording a 1.6% rise in domestic travellers — as international passengers dropped 0.9%.

“On a last twelve-month basis, the total MAHB network of airports registered 5% growth with 132 million passengers,” MAHB said, adding that this marks a record high.

The group’s overall aircraft movements in August grew 1.1% y-o-y to 94,053, backed by international aircraft movements, which grew 3.3% to 37,791, while domestic’s declined 0.4% to 56,262.