KUALA LUMPUR (July 10): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) handled 3.7% less passengers in June 2015, with 6.99 million passengers passing through the 39 airports it manages in the country compared with 7.26 million passengers a year ago, mainly due to lesser travel during the Ramadan month.

Of this total, the airport operator saw 4 million passengers passing through the KL International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang in June, a 4.4% decline from 4.18 million a year ago.

International traffic fell 2.3% to 3.28 million from 3.36 million in June 2014, while domestic traffic fell 4.8% to 3.71 million from 3.9 million during the same period.

Overall aircraft movements grew 1.6% year-on-year in June, with domestic and international registering 0.8% and 3% increases respectively.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, MAHB said Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Turkey continued to achieve double-digit growth of 12.1% in passenger traffic to 2.45 million for June 2015 from 2.19 million in June 2014. Overall aircraft movements grew 16.9% year-on-year.

For the first half of this year, the number of passengers passing through MAHB’s 39 airports totalled 41.33 million, similar to that recorded in the first-half of 2014.

The performance in the first six months was dragged down by a marginal 1.6% contraction in passenger traffic at KLIA to 24.05 million compared with 24.45 million a year ago.

International traffic fell 1.9% to 19.64 million passengers from 20.02 million a year ago, while domestic traffic rose 1.8% to 21.69 million passengers from 21.31 million in the January-June 2014 period.

MAHB said the Malaysia Airlines restructuring outcome and AirAsia X Bhd’s difficulties have affected the sentiments for air travel.

Nonetheless, the group noted that China traffic is now registering double-digit growth and is expected to continue.

“Other than the South Asia sector, the other international and domestic sectors generally registered negative growth for June 2015. The current turmoil in the Middle East combined with lesser travel during Ramadan continue to cause a dent in the Middle East traffic,” MAHB added.

Moving forward, MAHB noted that there are still several issues of concern.

“The weakening ringgit would help to raise tourism numbers, but could affect airlines yields which may force a rise in fares,” it said.

MAHB (fundamental: 1; valuation: 1.4) shares closed 10 sen or 1.64% higher at RM6.20 today, giving it a market capitalisation of RM10.12 billion.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)