KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd
(MAHB) has continued to record more than 11 million for the second consecutive month in August 2023 at its network of airports in Malaysia and Turkiye.
The airport operator said Malaysia accounted for more than 66 per cent or 7.4 million of the total 11.2 million passengers.
Meanwhile, the group's Turkiye operations registered 3.8 million passenger movements -- a three per cent increase from the 3.7 million passengers registered in July 2023, it said in a statement today.
On the local front, airports in Malaysia registered 3.5 million and 3.9 million passengers for the international and domestic sectors respectively in August 2023.
August 2023 also saw the highest average total daily passenger movements for the year-to-date at 240,000 passengers.
"This was partly driven by the six state elections on Aug 12, the extra public holiday declared on Aug 13 post-election, and 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.
MAHB said more airlines have also restructured their routes with available active fleets that are in operation, resulting in more flights to the Northeast Asia region, as well as resumption of routes to pre-pandemic destinations.
It noted that a myriad of airline activities took place last month, such as the commencement of daily Lombok-KLIA and Surabaya-KLIA flights by the new airline, Super Air Jet, as well as the daily Chennai-KLIA flights by Batik Air Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Batik Air Malaysia introduced six weekly KLIA-Auckland flights, four weekly KLIA-Okinawa flights and twice weekly KLIA-Jeddah flights.
For route resumption, AirAsia resumed its KLIA-Vientiane four weekly flights while Batik Air Malaysia resumed its daily KLIA-Hong Kong flights.
The Penang International Airport was also a beneficiary of AirAsia's newly launched thrice weekly flights to Hong Kong, as well as daily flights to Kuala Namu by Batik Air Indonesia.
As for the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Turkiye, MAHB said its total passenger movements in August 2023 continue to exceed 2019’s pre-pandemic levels at 3.8 million passengers, marking a growth of 8.4 per cent 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.
"During the month, Turkish low-cost carriers, Pegasus and Anadolujet had also introduced new services to Kastomonu, a domestic destination with one weekly flight each," added MAHB. - Bernama
