Malaysia Air Passenger Traffic Growth To Rebound In 2019

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 11 (Bernama) – Malaysia's air passenger traffic is set to grow at faster rate of 4.9 per cent this year, up from 2.5 per cent last year. Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) forecast domestic passenger traffic would grow by 7.6 per cent and international traffic by 2.4 per cent. “The higher domestic growth is a correction from the lower capacity registered in 2018. The recent announcement made to extend the 15-day visa exemptions for China and India tourists to December 2019 would help spur traffic,” the company said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia Thursday. It said tourism support activities were necessary to boost the numbers in a maturing traffic. MAHB said the continuous relatively low Brent crude prices expected in 2019 was also a positive factor for air travel industry. "However, traffic growth is expected to remain vulnerable with significant changes in the macro economic environment despite the lower fuel price expected," it said, adding that the US-China trade tension remained a concern to the industry. Last year was a challenging period for the aviation industry against the backdrop of uncertainties. Malaysia passenger movements grew 2.5 per cent to 99 million passengers (2017: 8.5 per cent), with domestic and international movements increasing by 0.4 per cent and 4.5 per cent, respectively. Meanwhile, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport's (Istanbul SGIA) passengers figure rose by 8.8 per cent to 34.1 million, boosting the total number of passengers handled by the MAHB network of airports to 133.1 million in 2018 – the highest ever recorded. However, passenger growth prospect for Istanbul SGIA was expected to moderate to 4.3 per cent this year partly due to capacity limitations pending the opening of a second runway, MAHB said. The airport operator said the growth last year came about through airlines’ additional frequencies, direct connectivity and new routes that were not operated by other airlines previously. Malaysia passenger traffic performance was mainly driven by the international sector. Sixty international city pairs registered double-digit growth over last year, including Tianjin, Brisbane, Jeju, Cam Ranh, Ningbo, Guiyang, Sihanouk, Nanjing, Honolulu, Jinjiang, Bhubaneswar, Zhengzhou and Amritsar. MAHB said AirAsia Group Bhd, Malaysia Airlines Bhd and Malindo Air were the main contributors to international traffic in 2018. The year also saw three new airlines – Citilink Garuda Indonesia, Condor Flugdienst and Indigo Airlines – commencing their operations at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) main terminal and klia2. In addition, Thai AirAsia also started to fly to Kota Kinabalu International Airport from Don Muang Airport and Qatar Airways began services to Penang International Airport from Doha. TUI Airways, meanwhile, started fortnightly charter operations from Birmingham to Langkawi International Airport. Overall, total passenger movements in KLIA and klia2 stood at 60 million passengers. Of this, 31.9 million passengers flew from klia2 and the remaining 28.1 million from KLIA. Meantime, aircraft movements increased by 2.8 per cent following growth recorded in international and domestic movements of 6.0 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively. MAHB said overall load factor stood at 74.4 per cent in 2018, 1.9 percentage points less than 2017, while cargo movements declined by 0.9 per cent to 965,149 metric tonnes. -- BERNAMA