This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on December 11, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Passengers who passed through Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) network of airports, including the group’s Turkey Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISG), grew 6% in November to 11.5 million from 10.84 million last year.

Its Malaysian airports alone saw a 4.7% growth in passenger movements to 8.64 million in November from 8.25 million in the same month last year, with Kuala Lumpur International Airport terminal passenger movements growing 3.6% to 5.14 million from 4.96 million previously.

ISG, meanwhile, saw passenger traffic rising 10.2% to 2.86 million from 2.6 million, according to its stock exchange filing yesterday.

Year to date (YTD), MAHB’s network of airports handled 127.83 million passengers in the January-November period, 5.6% more than 121.08 million passengers in the same period last year.

This came from a 6.2% growth in YTD passenger movements at its Malaysian airports to 95.21 million passengers from 89.66 million passengers in the previous corresponding period, while ISG passengers rose 3.9% to 32.63 million from 31.42 million.

In terms of aircraft traffic, MAHB said there was an increase of 3.6% to 93,319 aircraft movements throughout its airports in November, compared with last year’s 90,091 aircraft.

Traffic growth momentum, which picked up in June this year, continued through November, said MAHB. “The November performance could be viewed as a positive sign for the coming year both in terms of airline seat capacity provision and potential demand for air travel,” it said.

“Malaysia’s moderate growth in passenger movements in November was partly contributed by the single-digit domestic growth. This was after several months of double-digit growth following a prolonged reduction previously.

“This was also partly due to November being an uneventful month with some school holidays in the last week,” it added.

ISG, meanwhile, continued to register double-digit growth for the international sector and the domestic sector recorded growth after a year of decline, it noted.