This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on February 12, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) recorded a 3.1% growth year-on-year (y-o-y) in total passenger movements to 11.1 million in January compared to the same month last year.

This boosted passenger movements over a 12-month period by 3.7% to a record high of 133.5 million, MAHB said in a statement.

“The 11.1 million passenger movements [are] above the general norm for MAHB’s network of airports, considering January is generally a low travelling month,” the group said, noting that such performance was recorded only during the peak season in 2018.

The group’s domestic sector grew 3.6% to 5.7 million passengers, faster than the 2.5% growth of its international sector to 5.4 million passenger movements.

Domestic passenger movements recorded a 7.1% growth y-o-y in January, while MAHB’s international passenger movements were flat.

The KLIA main terminal saw a decline in 12-month passenger movements by 0.4% in January while klia2 recorded a 4.3% increase over the same period.

“Overall aircraft movements at KLIA decreased by 3.5% y-o-y in January. International aircraft movements declined by 5.4% while the domestic aircraft movements increased by 0.8%,” MAHB said.

The group’s Sahiba Gökçen International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey saw a growth of 2.6% y-o-y, supported by a 15.4% increase in international passenger movements.

“On the local front, Malaysia’s passenger movements are undergoing some corrections for domestic growth as originally expected.

“Despite the cut in international frequencies and temporary suspension of operation by Firefly and Indonesia AirAsia X, new airlines and new routes were also introduced from the fourth quarter of 2018 which carried the growth momentum into January 2019,” MAHB said.

It added that Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, Langkawi, and Ipoh recorded double-digit growth for international passengers in January 2019.

Among the airlines that recorded double-digit growth that month were Shenzhen Airlines, Indonesia AirAsia, Air Seoul, Xiamen Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Royal Brunei Airlines.

MAHB shares closed up three sen, or 0.38%, at RM7.93 yesterday, leaving the group with a RM13.16 billion market capitalisation.