Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (May 10): Local airports recorded 6.95 million passengers in April, up 2.2% compared with 6.8 million passengers in the same month last year, says Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB).

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, MAHB said international passengers grew 4.4% to 3.4 million, from 3.3 million; while domestic passengers rose 0.1% to 3.55 million, from 3.54 million.

The passenger traffic at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) during the month dropped 0.4% to 1.96 million in April, compared with 1.97 million in April 2015; while klia2 saw an increase of 7.5% in passengers to 2.16 million, from 2.01 million.

Overall aircraft movements fell 4.8% during the month, with international and domestic aircraft movements declining 3.6% and 5.5% respectively.

MAHB said its Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Turkey saw a 10% increase in passengers in April this year to 2.38 million, compared with 2.16 million in April 2015.

Meanwhile, for the first four months of this year, MAHB’s Malaysian airports saw a 3.3% increase in passengers to 28.12 million, compared with 27.21 million in the previous corresponding period.

International passengers grew 5.8% to 13.84 million, from 13.09 million; while domestic passengers grew 1% to 14.27 million, from 14.13 million.

For Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen, the January-April period saw a 19.8% increase in passengers to 29.6 million, from 24.71 million previously, underpinned by a 21.6% increase in domestic passengers to 6.16 million, from 5.07 million.

MAHB said despite the reduction in aircraft movements in April, its Malaysian airports managed to record a positive 2.2% growth.

The company said the growth in international passenger traffic was contributed by significant improvement in the North East Asia and Middle East sectors, as well as at secondary airports.

“Among others, Qatar Airways, China Airlines, Iraqi Airways, Xiamen Airlines, Turkish Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Mahan Air and Oman Air are some of the airlines which grew above 30% over April 2015,” it said.

“Airports such as Penang, Kota Kinabalu, Langkawi and Ipoh recorded very high year-on-year increases of over 15%; and as high as over 100% in the case of Ipoh airport,” it added.

MAHB said Kota Kinabalu international passengers continued to record double digit growth of 26.3% in the first four months of the year.

“This is a remarkable improvement from the two terminals operations before, whereby up to November 2014 year-to-date growth was less than 1.1% for each of the terminals,” it added.

MAHB also said both full service carriers and low cost carriers have recorded more than 20% growth in the January-April period.

Meanwhile, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen continued to record double digit growth in domestic passengers in April, while international traffic was dented by unfavourable security sentiments and travel advisories.

In addition, a new visa regime has affected inbound tourism from a large number of countries, particularly from Iraq and Iran, MAHB said.

MAHB shares closed 14 sen or 2.16% lower today at RM6.35, for a market capitalisation of RM10.54 billion.

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