KUALA LUMPUR (July 10): The number of passengers passing through the 39 airports in the country Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) manages rose 13.5% in June 2017 to 7.58 million from 6.68 million a year ago.

In a statement today, the airport operator said the overall increase in passengers in June was supported by growth in airline seats and an improvement in average load factors following the long weekend of Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebration at the end of June 2017.

"Twenty-four airlines in June 2017 and 28 airlines in 1H17 registered double-digit growth for international passenger traffic. This includes AirAsia X, All Nippon Airways, China Airlines, Malindo Air, Saudi Arabian Airlines and Malaysia Airlines," it added.

Overall average load factor also improved by 0.3 percentage points to 74.7% in June 2017 compared with the same month last year.

Latest figures from MAHB showed that 4.5 million passengers passed through the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang in June 2017, an increase of 15.1% from 3.91 million in June 2016.

International passengers passing through KLIA grew 17.9% to 3.25 million from 2.76 million, while domestic passenger numbers also climbed 8.3% to 1.25 million from 1.15 million.

Meanwhile, MAHB's Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA) in Istanbul, Turkey, recorded a 7.5% increase in passenger movements to 2.58 million in June 2017 from 2.4 million in June 2016.

Including SGIA's traffic volume, total MAHB system handled 11.9% more passengers at 10.16 million in June 2017 compared with 9.08 million in June 2016.

Overall aircraft movements increased by 7.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) in June 2017, with international and domestic movements registering an increase of 8.8% and 7.1% respectively over June 2016.

For the first six months of this year (1H17), MAHB's Malaysian airports handled 12.2% more passengers at 47.26 million compared with 42.14 million a year ago.

KLIA alone handled 14.5% more passenger traffic at 28.43 million from 24.82 million in the January-June 2016 period.

MAHB said KLIA growth in 1H17 was mainly contributed by KLIA Main Terminal, which grew by 23.3% y-o-y to 13.9 million passengers.

Passenger traffic at klia2 also grew 7.2% y-o-y to 14.5 million passengers in 1H17.

MAHB's total system of airports (including SGIA) grew 9.5% to 61.67 million passengers in 1H17 from 56.3 million pasengers in 1H16.

Overall average load factors improved by 3.2 percentage points to 76.3% y-o-y in 1H17.

Aircraft movements grew by 5.8% y-o-y in 1H17, with international movements improving by 8.1% and domestic movements growing by 4.4% over 1H16.

"Based on the prevailing indications and the current growth trend, there are optimistic signs that airports in Malaysia as a group is poised to achieve a growth rate of at least 8% for 2017," said MAHB.

MAHB shares closed up two sen or 0.24% at RM8.47 today, with 1.04 million shares traded, giving it a market capitalisation of RM14.05 billion.