Thursday 28 Mar 2024
By
main news image

KUALA LUMPUR (March 11): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) saw a 23.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) decline in the number of passengers that travelled through its airports in Malaysia as the Covid-19 outbreak weighed on passenger traffic.
 
In a bourse filing today, the airport operator said in February, passenger traffic among its 39 airports in Malaysia declined 23.4% y-o-y to 6.24 million passengers, from 8.15 million passengers last year.
 
Both international and domestic travellers saw reductions. In the case of international passengers, traffic fell 29.7% to 2.95 million passengers, from 4.19 million passengers registered in February 2019.
 
The non-Asean sector declined 32.9% to 1.45 million passengers in February, from 2.15 million passengers last year. Asean passengers were not spared either, as the number of passengers handled fell 26.2% to 1.5 million, from 2.03 million in February last year.
 
Domestic travellers also declined, falling by 16.8% to 3.3 million passengers, from 3.96 million passengers in February last year.
 
Aircraft movements did inch up by 0.2% — with domestic aircraft movements rising 3.7% y-o-y and international aircraft movements declining 5.2%.
 
Overall average load factor fell by 17.2 percentage points y-o-y to 58.2%.
 
MAHB noted that the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak was felt as soon as China imposed lockdowns in several provinces and the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
 
“This led to airlines announcing temporary flight suspensions and flight cancellations, and travel restrictions imposed by certain countries,” it said.
 
The international sector saw a reduction of 1,380 flight movements compared with February 2019. On a weekly basis, there were 2,935 fewer flight movements for both the domestic and international sectors recorded in the last week of February versus January.
 
“A similar scenario was observed during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, when there was a sharp decline in traffic in the first month of impact that continued to peak for the following two months.

"The decline in traffic due to the SARS outbreak continued for several months and eventually picked up when the decline in infected cases reduced and travel confidence resumed,” it said.
 
MAHB said passenger traffic at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) contracted 24.2% y-o-y in February, with international passenger movements declining 25.7%.

In particular, non-Asean passenger movements declined 26.6%, while Asean passengers fell 24.6%.
 
Domestic travel at the capital’s airport also fell 20.5%.
 
Specifically, klia2 passenger traffic fell 27.7% y-o-y, while KLIA Main Terminal passenger traffic fell 20.2%.
 
“Most of the regions registered a double-digit decline in passenger movements except for Middle East and South Asia, which registered a marginal growth for February 2020. Twelve (12) airlines registered growth for international passenger movements with seven (7) of the airlines registering double-digit growth for February 2020,” the airports operator noted.
 
System-wide, which is inclusive of its Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport (SGIA) in Turkey, passenger traffic declined 16.7% y-o-y to 8.87 million passengers, from 10.66 million passengers previously.
 
SGIA passenger traffic increased 4.9% to 2.63 million passengers, from 2.51 million passengers. International passenger traffic grew 16.6% y-o-y. while domestic passenger traffic contracted 1.9%.
 
“Istanbul SGIA passenger movements continued to register an encouraging growth for the international sector by 16.6% for February 2020,” the airport operator said.
 
At the noon close, shares in MAHB were trading 4.18% or 24 sen higher at RM5.98, valuing it at 9.92 billion.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share