KUALA LUMPUR (April 21): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said its nationwide airport network recorded a 52% increase in international passenger movements to 420,000 in March from February, driven by the implementation of various Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) programmes.

In a Thursday statement, MAHB said VTL programmes were implemented between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, Bangkok, Phuket and Phnom Penh, and between Penang and Singapore.

MAHB said that on March 28, Kuala Lumpur International Airport welcomed a new international airline, Air India Express, which flies three times a week from Tiruchirappalli International Airport in Tamil Nadu, India. "It is the only foreign carrier with a scheduled service between Tiruchirappalli and Kuala Lumpur," said MAHB.

Meanwhile, MAHB's partner airlines have also resumed other international routes, such as Malaysia Airlines and Malindo Air, flying to Perth after Australia's borders reopened on March 3, MAHB said.

Malaysia Airlines also resumed flights to five cities in India — New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad — in March, it noted.

MAHB managing director Datuk Iskandar Mizal Mahmood said the group is encouraged by the gradual increase in international passenger traffic at its local airports with the reopening of the borders on April 1.

"Since then, we have been recording a daily average of 20,000 international movements.

"We are expecting a further increase to this number once Kota Kinabalu International Airport (BKI) begins to receive international passengers this month. Prior to the [Covid-19] pandemic, BKI was our third busiest airport for international traffic with an average of 8,460 international passenger movements per day," he added.

Last month, MAHB recorded a total of 5.31 million passenger movements with its local airports in Malaysia serving 57% or 3.03 million passengers.

Its Turkish asset, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport, served a total of 2.29 million passengers with 1.15 million international and 1.14 million domestic passengers respectively.

"For Malaysia, the overall passenger movements increased by 19% in March from February. Its domestic passenger traffic movements also increased by 15% at 2.61 million passengers from the previous month," MAHB added.

At the time of writing, MAHB shares rose three sen or 0.45% to RM6.77, with a market capitalisation of RM11.23 billion.