MAHB airports see 77% decline in Q1 passenger movement

 

Istanbul’s SGIA recorded positive growth in passenger movements for the first time since the pandemic outbreak. (Bernama pic)

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) network of airports registered a decline of 76.8% with 5.9 million passenger movements for the first quarter of 2021 due to the reimposition of the movement control order effective Jan 13 in Malaysia.

The company however said Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA) continued to show gradual recovery in traffic, particularly the domestic sector following Turkey’s vaccine rollout from January.

“Domestic and international sectors declined by 68% and 87.3% respectively in Q1 2021 over the same corresponding period last year with 1.5 million and 4.4 million passenger movements respectively.

“On a 12-month basis, the MAHB network of airports registered 23.4 million passenger movements, a reduction of 82.2% over the previous corresponding period,” it said in its ‘Passenger Traffic Snapshot, March 2021’ for Bursa Malaysia today.

It said Malaysia passenger movements contracted by 91% while SGIA contracted by 40% over Q1 2020.

“March 2021 passenger movements for the MAHB network of airports contracted by 53.4% to 2.2 million passengers. Domestic and international sectors declined by 45.3% and 67.8% respectively.

“Malaysia passenger movements contracted by 82.1% in March 2021. Domestic and international passenger movements decreased by 75.9% and 91.9% respectively,” it said.

Additionally, the company said SGIA passenger movements recorded positive growth for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, with a 7.4% increase in March 2021 over March 2020.

“Domestic sector recorded double-digit growth of 11.4%, while the international sector registered a marginal decline of 1.9%,” it said.

MAHB said Kota Kinabalu, Subang, Labuan, Lahad Datu, Sandakan and Tawau registered higher passenger movements for March 2021 compared to January and February passenger volumes.

“Traffic recovery would continue to rely on the efficacy of the vaccine rollout and the extent of travel restrictions of which Covid-19 spread would be brought under control locally as well as internationally.

“Digital health travel passes and a more synchronised travel procedure across countries may encourage cross-border travel and support in travel recovery,” it added. - FMT