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

KUALA LUMPUR: Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s (KLIA) Main Terminal has achieved a strong 12% growth in passenger movements compared with klia2’s 6.9% in October, said Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB).

The combined passenger movements in KLIA and klia2 climbed 9.3%, registering 5.1 million passengers in October, with international and domestic passenger movements up 9.5% and 8.8% year-on-year (y-o-y) respectively.

On a 12-month basis, klia2 saw stronger growth, with passenger movements expanding 4.3% to 33 million, versus KLIA’s 2.6% to 28.9 million.

Overall, MAHB said combined aircraft movements at the KLIA and klia2 increased 3.8% in October compared with that a year ago. International and domestic aircraft movements at the KLIA increased 2.5% and 6.7% respectively.

Passenger movements in domestic airports operated by MAHB grew 10% in October — the highest monthly growth.

International passenger movements grew 7.8% — the highest increase for the year in absolute and growth percentage terms, while domestic passenger movements sustained a double-digit growth at 12.3%, according to MAHB.

This was evident from a high increase of average load factor by 2.7 percentage points for both sectors, said MAHB.

In all airports that MAHB operates locally and abroad, passenger traffic increased 9.2% in October — the highest growth so far this year.

The passenger traffic grew to 11.7 million, including the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport, according to a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday.

MAHB said international and domestic passenger movements grew 11% and 7.5% with 5.6 million and 6.1 million passengers respectively in October in all airports that it manages.

“Passenger movements in October 2019 for the network of airports continued to maintain a growth momentum [that] picked up in June. In particular, the international growth of passengers in absolute and percentage points was encouraging,” said MAHB.

On a 12-month basis, the total MAHB airports registered a 5.2% growth or 6.88 million, to 139.2 million passengers. This was the highest absolute volume y-o-y increase on a 12-month basis.

MAHB shares dropped 14 sen or 1.65% to RM8.35 yesterday, valuing the company at RM13.85 billion.