Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 10): The number of passengers who passed through the 39 airports Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) operates in Malaysia grew 2.2% to 8.56 million in July this year from 8.38 million a year ago.

The international passenger volume recorded a 5.1% year-on-year (y-o-y) increase in July 2018 to 4.6 million, but was offset by a 1% decline in domestic traffic to 4 million passengers.

Overall aircraft movements increased by a marginal 0.2% y-o-y, with international movements up 2.6% while domestic movements fell 1.4% over July 2017.

The Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang handled 5.25 million passengers in July 2018, up 2.9% from 5.11 million passengers recorded a year ago.

Out of this, passenger traffic at KLIA Main Terminal rose 1.4% to 2.53 million in July 2018 from 2.49 million in July 2017, while klia also saw a 4.3% increase in traffic to 2.73 million in July 2018 from 2.61 million in July 2017.

Systemwide including its Istanbul operations in Turkey, MAHB handled 4.2% more passengers at 11.88 million in July 2018 compared with 11.4 million a year ago.

Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport's (SGIA) passenger traffic grew 9.8% y-o-y in July 2018 to a record 3.32 million from 3.02 million.

In a statement today, MAHB said both international and domestic sectors achieved record passenger movements for a month in July 2018, surpassing December passenger movements of previous years.

"December has always been the peak month and December traffic has never been overtaken by other months," it added.

Still, MAHB noted that the 4.2% overall growth for MAHB network of airports can be considered subdued, partly because of the high base traffic in the first week of July 2017. "The high base was due to Eid al-Fitr holiday season that started from end of June and stretched to the early weeks of July 2017," it said.

In the first seven months of 2018 (7M18), MAHB said airports in Malaysia registered a 3% growth in passenger volume to 57.36 million from 55.7 million a year ago. Aircraft movements grew by 1.3% y-o-y in 7M18.

KLIA passenger movements grew by 4.2% y-o-y to 35 million passengers in 7M18. Out of this, KLIA Main Terminal passenger movements declined by 0.8% to 16.3 million, which was offset by a 9% increase in traffic at klia2 to 18.7 million passengers.

Systemwide including Istanbul SGIA, MAHB's airports recorded a growth of 5.1% y-o-y to 76.88 million passengers in 7M18 from 73.14 million in 7M17. Total passenger traffic at Istanbul SGIA rose 12% to 19.52 million passengers in 7M18.

Going forward, MAHB said the demand for international travel remains positive.

MAHB shares closed up 28 sen or 2.92% at RM9.86 today, for a market capitalisation of RM15.96 billion.

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