This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on November 13, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) total network of airports saw a 0.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth for October to 10.7 million passenger movements, mainly contributed by international passengers.

In a statement, the airport operator said international passenger movements grew 2.2% to 5.1 million passengers during the month, mitigated by a 1% decline in domestic passenger movements to 5.6 million.

For the 12 months to October, 132.3 million passenger movements were recorded, up 4.4% from 126.8 million in the previous corresponding period.

MAHB said its Malaysian airports registered a 1.3% decline in y-o-y growth to 7.8 million passenger movements.

The international segment for local airports saw four million passenger movements, a decline of 0.8% y-o-y, and the domestic segment a 1.8% decline to 3.8 million passengers.

“The latent demand for air travel at airports in Malaysia has shown weakness from September 2018.  

“The overall performance of passenger movements at Malaysian airports was also partly affected by airlines’ route restructuring with airlines offering more direct international connectivity from MASB (Malaysia Airports Sdn Bhd) airports, bypassing the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport),” said MAHB.

 MAHB’s share price closed up seven sen or 0.87% at RM8.10 yesterday, with a market capitalisation of RM13.44 billion.