KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 11): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd saw a 7.8% growth in passenger movements to 11.4 million passengers in its airports in August 2017, including Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA), from 10.58 million passengers in the same month last year.

International traffic grew by 15.8% to 5.5 million passengers, while domestic traffic grew 1.3% to 5.9 million passengers, MAHB said in a statement today.

Over the last twelve months, MAHB saw a record high traffic of 125.7 million passengers, up 9% year-on-year, the airport operator said.

Overall aircraft movements increased by 2.6%, primarily due to international movements which had grown 11%, while domestic movements decreased 2.1%.

Malaysian airports recorded a 9.3% growth in passengers to 8.3 million in August this year, of which the international sector recorded a 17.3% increase to 4.4 million and the domestic sector recorded a 1.7% growth to 3.9 million passengers.

“[This was] mainly driven by the international traffic growth that was contributed among others, by the Hajj travel season, the SEA Games Kuala Lumpur 2017, visa relaxation for India and China, competitive fares, as well as favourable exchange rate for foreign tourists,” the statement said.

In particular, international traffic for ASEAN destinations grew 15.2% to 2 million passengers, whereas non-ASEAN traffic posted a 19.1% increase in passengers to 2.4 million.

Overall aircraft movements were up by 4.6%, while overall average load factor grew 77% over the year — a 2.4% improvement from last year’s growth figure.