KUALA LUMPUR: Passenger traffic at the 39 airports Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) manages climbed 4.7% to 83.32 million last year from 79.59 million in 2013, crossing the 80 million mark for the first time.

However, MAHB said passenger growth for 2014 was lower than expected as the performance was affected by the negative sentiment from the two Malaysia Airlines (MH370 and MH17) tragedies.

International passenger traffic increased 4.9% to 40.14 million, while domestic movements rose 4.5% to 43.19 million.

“December 2014 continued to register the highest passenger movements as in previous years. December 2014’s performance with 8.2 million passengers translating into a positive growth of 0.3% over December 2013 was better than expected,” said MAHB in a statement yesterday.

It added that December’s average load factor of 76.5% was the highest recorded in a month in 2014, while aircraft traffic movements grew by 9.1% over December 2013.

Of the 83.32 million passengers handled last year, nearly 80% came from AirAsia Group and MAS and about 15% from foreign carriers.

Cargo movements for full-year 2014 grew by 8% to 61.01 million tonnes — the highest cargo volume handled by MAHB since 2006.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang (KLIA) saw 3% more passengers last year, reaching 48.92 million passengers from 47.5 million in 2013.

KLIA’s December passenger traffic increased by a marginal 0.3% to 4.84 million. International movements increased by 5.4%, but domestic movements registered a decline of 10.4% compared with December 2013.

In addition, passenger traffic at KLIA Main declined by 3.0%, while klia2 increased by 10.1%.

MAHB said the growth of KLIA Main was impacted by the shift in airlines’ domestic operations for direct flights between the domestic airports compared with previously, when connections to domestic airports were mainly through KLIA.

“The decline registered for KLIA Main was cemented by the expected transfer of Lion Air and Malindo Air operations to klia2,” it said.

Looking ahead, MAHB expects 2015 passenger traffic to see 85.8 million movements, 3% above 2014, based on the assumptions that gross domestic product growth of 5% to 6% will hold, fuel prices remain stable at the current lower levels and airlines’ seat capacity supply remains in line with its estimates.

“We also foresee another major carrier returning to Malaysia in 2015, underlying the strong fundamentals of KLIA and the airport system in Malaysia, despite the unprecedented triple airline incidents in 2014,” MAHB said.

“It is also hoped that the restructured MAS will bring about positive growth to the industry,” it said.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 13, 2015.