KUALA LUMPUR – Monthly domestic passenger movements across Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) network of airports in the country increased threefold to 1.18 million passengers in October this year compared with 362,000 passengers recorded in September, reported the group.
This increase of 226% followed the lifting of domestic travel restrictions, which had also contributed to the group reaching more than one million total passengers in Malaysian traffic movement for the first time this year.
Meanwhile, the group’s combined operations in Malaysia and Turkey recorded a total of 4.1 million passenger movements last month, a 28% increase from September.
“The recent announcement of the Vaccinated Travel Lane between Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Singapore’s Changi Airport, as well as the Langkawi international travel bubble and the upcoming travel corridor between Malaysia and Indonesia will further improve passenger traffic in the coming months.
“Government-to-government (G2G) initiatives to facilitate safe international travel will certainly contribute to the recovery of the aviation industry, which has been severely affected by the imposition of travel restrictions due to Covid-19 ,” MAHB managing director Datuk Iskandar Mizal Mahmood said in a statement today.
He said MAHB is optimistic that there is an inherent demand for travel, be it for business or leisure.
On the part of industry players, Iskandar said MAHB has to ensure that safety measures are strictly implemented and adhered to so that passengers can travel with peace of mind and do not experience any deterioration in service.
He also added that pre-Covid-19, the KLIA-Changi route was the world’s busiest international flight route for two years in a row, in 2018 and 2019, recording more than 30,000 flights a year.
Iskandar said he believes that the same demand will continue to exist for this route.
He said Malaysia Airports’ asset in Turkey, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISG), continues to consistently record encouraging passenger traffic movements, which signals Turkey’s strong recovery in the aviation sector.
In October, ISG registered 2.7 million passengers with a 13% increase from the previous month for international passenger traffic movements.
Iskandar said Turkey’s high vaccination rate at 72.4% of its adult population, and the roll-out of its very own Covid-19 vaccine called Turkovac, have boosted the confidence of international tourists to visit the country.
On the whole, ISG is still the main contributor to the group’s total passenger movements at 66%. – Bernama, November 19, 2021
