PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) continues to record more than 11 million passenger movements for the second consecutive month in August 2023.
The airport operator registered 11.2 million passenger movements in that month, with the Malaysian market accounting for more than 66% at 7.4 million.
Its Turkey operations logged 3.8 million passenger movements, increasing 3% from 3.7 million in July.
In a statement today, MAHB said airports in Malaysia registered 3.5 million and 3.9 million passengers for the international and domestic sectors respectively in August.
The month also saw the highest average total daily passenger movements since the beginning of the year at 240,000 passengers.
MAHB said the increase in passenger movements was partly driven by the six state elections which resulted in an extra public holiday declared on Aug 13 in some states, as well as the National Day celebration that coincided with the school holidays.
“Traffic movements are displaying a trend that is similar to pre-pandemic periods where traffic peaks during festive seasons, school holidays and public holidays, indicating that travel trends are gradually normalising,” it said.
As for the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Turkey, MAHB said total passenger movements in August continue to exceed 2019’s pre-pandemic levels at 3.8 million passengers, marking a growth of 8.4% over the same month in 2019.
“This sustained traffic growth momentum was contributed by summer holiday travelling, airline route expansions and flight resumption to Northeast Asia destinations.
“In the same month, Turkish low-cost carriers, Pegasus and AnadoluJet had also introduced new services to Kastamonu, a domestic destination with one weekly flight each,” added MAHB.
As at 12.23pm, MAHB’s share price was up by five sen or 0.7% at RM7.19, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM12 billion.