KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 9): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) registered 7.3% growth in passenger movement to 9.77 million, throughout its entire airport system in Malaysia and Turkey, in November 2016, from 9.11 million a year ago.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, MAHB said the number of passengers passing through the 39 airports that it manages in Malaysia grew by 8.8% to 7.48 million in November this year, from 6.87 million last year.

MAHB said traffic growth was largely driven by Malaysia operations while Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport also achieved traffic growth for the second consecutive month with a 2.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth.

“Four out of the five international airports in Malaysia registered double digit growth for international traffic ranging from 8% to 28% with Kota Kinabalu registering the highest growth. Overall passenger traffic for 13 of the 21 international and domestic airports registered growth ranging from 3% to 75%,” the group said.

“This is largely contributed not only by all the main domestic carriers but also many foreign carriers which have since commenced operations and increased frequencies,” it added.

International passengers that used the group’s Malaysian airports registered a 12.1% y-o-y growth at 3.59 million passengers, while domestic passengers grew by 6.0% y-o-y in November, registering 3.89 million passengers.

“International passenger traffic to and from almost all regions of the world and Malaysia, with the exception of Europe, registered double and triple digit growth over November 2015,” MAHB said.

“Similarly passenger traffic to and from a large number of countries increased y-o-y in November by double to triple digits, including Australia, Iran, India, Cambodia, Mauritius, Maldives, New Zealand, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Laos, China, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Vietnam,” it added.

MAHB also said these increases were contributed by both local and foreign airlines.

“Twenty-two airlines including Malaysia Airlines Bhd, AirAsia X Bhd and Malindo Airways Sdn Bhd recorded double digit increases in international passengers over November 2016,” the group said.

KLIA Main Terminal passenger movements in November grew by 32.8% y-o-y to 2.22 million while Klia2’s passenger numbers declined by 3.2% y-o-y to 2.24 million in the month under review.

“The year-to-date passenger traffic for KLIA Main Terminal recorded 22.7 million passengers which is an increase of 10.9% while klia2 recorded 24.6 million, equivalent to a 4% increase over the corresponding period last year,” the group said.

In the cumulative 11-month period this year, MAHB’s system-wide passenger movements grew 5.6% to 107.45 million passengers, from 101.70 million passengers in previous corresponding period.

Total aircraft traffic at MAHB’s Malaysian operation grew 2.4% to 67,631 planes, from 66,059 planes last November.

The group also disclosed that overall average load factors improved to 75% in November 2016, an increase by three percentage points compared with the same month last year.

MAHB’s shares traded unchanged at RM6.34 today, giving it a market capitalisation of RM10.52 billion.