KUALA LUMPUR (June 11): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd's (MAHB) passenger traffic in May rebounded from April’s plunge but remains down by 97.8% year-on-year, dragged by the travel lockdowns imposed in Malaysia and Turkey to curb the Covid-19 outbreak.

MAHB recorded 237,200 passengers in Malaysia and at its Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SGIA) in Turkey combined. That's up 73.14% from April’s headcount of 137,000 but a big drop from the 10.65 million in May 2019, MAHB’s monthly passenger traffic snapshot filed to Bursa Malaysia today showed.

The worst hit was SGIA, which saw almost no traffic at all with just 200 passengers, compared with 2.72 million in May 2019, due to travel shutdowns there.

In Malaysia, its passenger traffic count was 237,000 — down 97% from the 7.93 million total it served at KLIA and all other Malaysia Airports Sdn Bhd's airports.

However, the month-on-month improvement should continue as Turkey has announced it will allow intercity travel from June 1.

“Pegasus and Anadolujet Airlines have resumed domestic flights from 1 June and have filed to increase frequencies,” MAHB said.

Similarly, Malaysia is switching from the movement control order to the recovery MCO from June 10 to Aug 31, which allows inter-state travel, hence allowing local airlines to resume domestic flights.

In Malaysia, a little over 37% of MAHB’s passenger traffic or 88,000 were recorded in KLIA in May, with the balance 149,000 from among the MASB airports.

In terms of aircraft traffic, Malaysia recorded an 85.6% y-o-y decline to 10,253 planes from 71,128 planes. This is represented by 2,728 planes or 26.6% in KLIA, and 7,525 or 73.4% at the MAHB airports.

In Istanbul's SGIA, plane count plummeted 99.6% y-o-y to 78, from 18,497.

Moving forward, MAHB said it has geared up necessary measures and processes for both travellers and airlines, strictly adhering to standard of procedures (SOP) by Malaysia National Security Council (NACSA) and guidelines by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airport Council International (ACI).

“The Malaysian government had also recently announced an additional RM35 billion Short-Term Economic Recovery Plan (ERP) on 5 June 2020, to address health and economic challenges due to the pandemic.

“Several of the tax incentives introduced in the recent ERP are expected to support and boost the domestic tourism sector until December 2021,” it added. 

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