KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 11): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd's (MAHB) passenger traffic count for all of its airports fell year-on-year (y-o-y) to 79.9% in July, as total passenger count breached 2.53 million one month after the easing of border controls.
Total passenger count for all its Malaysian airports plus Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA) in Istanbul, Turkey fell y-o-y by 92.1% in June.
The bulk of the passengers recorded in July comprised domestic flyers at 87% or 2.2 million, MAHB said, as international borders remained largely closed.
Nonetheless, MAHB noted that average daily passengers jumped by more than twofold compared with the numbers in June, an indication of growing demand.
"There was considerable upward pattern in movements a week before and towards Eid Al-Adha that fell on July 31, 2020, a seasonal traffic that is distinctive in Malaysia but uncommon for Istanbul domestic market," the airport operator added.
In Malaysia, total passenger count stood at 1.306 million — still down 85.8% from July 2019 — with only one-third or 446,000 coming from Kuala Lumpur International Airport while 860,000 came from its other Malaysian airports.
From January to July, Malaysia's total passenger count fell 66% to 20.53 million, from 60.34 million in the same period last year.
At Istanbul's SGIA, the passenger count for July 2020 and January-July was down 63.9% and 56.4% respectively.
"In SGIA, domestic [passenger movements] registered close to one million while international passenger movements registered almost 300,000.
"Four foreign airlines resumed operations to Istanbul SGIA from Morocco, Doha, Russia, and Kuwait in July 2020," it said.
For all airports under MAHB's management, passenger count fell 63.6% or 29.4 million in January-July 2020, compared with 60.36 million in the same period in 2019.
Meanwhile, total aircraft traffic's y-o-y decline narrowed to 67.3% in July to 31,966, from 97,745 in July 2019. It was, however, much higher than 16,087 seen in June this year.
From the seven-month period, aircraft traffic was down 52.8% to 303,339, from 642,064 in January-July 2019.
"In Malaysia, the announcement of the Reciprocal Green Lane and Periodic Commuting Arrangement to facilitate cross-border travel for essential travel, official purposes, business and work purposes between Malaysia and Singapore from mid-August would see some slight increases in international traffic.
"Local airlines, in their latest filings, [indicate] flights' resumption to Singapore [will start] from Aug 17 onwards," MAHB said.
"Istanbul SGIA upsurge of passenger movements in July was partly contributed to resumption of foreign airlines' operations, recovery in flight frequencies and recommencement of several routes.
"Pobeda (Russian airline) would recommence daily operations to Moscow, Russia from Aug 1st, in correspondence with Turkey's new announcement to allow resumption of Turkey-Russia air services in August," it added.
Shares in MAHB dropped one sen to RM4.98 on today's close, valuing the group at RM8.26 billion.