KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) recorded a 4.7% year-on-year growth in passenger traffic in September with combined passenger volume of 10.8 million in all its airports including Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (Istanbul SGIA).

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, MAHB said international traffic grew 10.5% y-o-y to five million passengers while domestic traffic increased marginally by 0.2% to 5.8 million passengers as compared with a year ago.

Overall aircraft movements, on the other hand, rose 2.5% in September – international movements posted 9.7% growth whereas domestic movements saw a yearly drop of 1.6%.

Still, MAHB noted on a last-12-month basis, its entire network of airports saw an 8.6% increment in passengers to 126.2 million passengers, the highest traffic handled over a 12-month period.

On the local front, airports in Malaysia handled 7.8 million passengers in September this year, rising 3.6% from September 2016, with overall aircraft movements growing 4.1%.

However, overall average load factor stood at 73.1% in September, down 3.1 percentage points year-on-year.

For Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), passenger movements was 5.5% higher y-o-y at 4.7 million. Passenger traffic for the Main Terminal dropped 3.4% while klia2 saw a 15% on-year improvement.

As for MASB airports (airports apart from KLIA handled by Malaysia Airports Sdn Bhd), passenger movements rose marginally by 0.9% y-o-y to 3.1 million passengers. International passenger movements rose 12.5% to 600,000 passengers, Asean traffic grew 5.4% y-o-y to 300,000 passengers while non-Asean traffic improved 24% to 300,000 passengers.

Meanwhile, Istanbul SGIA posted growth of 7.9% in passenger traffic to 2.9 million passengers. International and domestic passengers grew by 9.5% and 7.1% respectively to one million and 1.9 million respectively.

“The growth was achieved despite a decrease in total aircraft movements by 2.7%, with both international and domestic traffic movements recording 1.9% and 3.2% decline respectively,” MAHB said.

Commenting on September’s performance, MAHB described the overall increase in passengers as “moderate”, despite double-digit growth in international passenger traffic.

“There was a double-digit growth in passenger traffic to and from [13] countries in September 2017, including South Korea, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Oman and Saudi Arabia,” the group said.

Additionally, airlines which achieved growth during the period included AirAsia X Bhd, All Nippon Airways Co Ltd, Malindo Air Sdn Bhd, China Southern Airlines Co Ltd, Qatar Airways Co Q.C.S.C and Singapore Airlines Ltd, among others, said MAHB.