PETALING JAYA: Airports in Malaysia registered 3.2 million passenger movements in March 2020, a decline of 63.6% over March 2019, affected by Covid-19 and the travel restrictions imposed, according to Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB).
It said airports in Malaysia registered decreasing passenger movements from the end of January 2020 and the rate of decline significantly increased from March 18, 2020 corresponding to the movement control order (MCO) that restricted both Malaysians and foreigners from travelling to and from Malaysia.
However, there were small number of arrival Malaysian passengers from repatriation flights at KLIA and who further continued to travel domestically via KLIA.
“Moving forward, the traffic recovery would depend on the speed and extent at which Covid-19 spread is brought under control at the domestic level as well internationally. While China seems to be recovering, the international flights to Malaysia would only resume if the contagion level in Malaysia is at a level that would encourage cross border travel. Nevertheless, the prime initiator of air travel would be the level of control of the Covid-19,“ MAHB said in its March 2020 passenger traffic snapshot today.
“With the aviation industry affected by the travel restrictions and bans, MAHB has begun executing group-wide optimisation plan to ensure that the group is able to meet its financial and operational obligations. This includes reviewing operational efficiencies, rebasing cost, prioritising capital expenditure and conserving cash to safeguard its financial resilience while ensuring business continuity under difficult conditions.”
In March 2020, the international and domestic sectors recorded 1.3 million and 2.0 million passenger movements with a decline of 71.8% and 55.3% over March 2019 respectively.
Overall aircraft movements declined by 43.4%. International and domestic aircraft movements declined by 52.3% and 37.7% respectively over March 2019. Average load factor for overall traffic declined by 21.8 percentage points to 54.1 in March 2020 over March 2019.
KLIA passenger movements declined by 66.7% over March 2019 registering 1.7 million passenger movements. The international sector declined by 70.2% with 1.1 million passenger movements. Domestic sector passenger movements declined by 57.6% over March 2019 with 600,000 passengers. March 2020 passenger movements for KLIA Main Terminal and klia2 declined by 65.4% and 67.7%.
Overall aircraft movements at KLIA decreased by 50.6% over the same month last year. International and domestic aircraft movements at KLIA declined by 52.2% and 47.1% respectively.
Passenger movements at MASB airports or the 38 Malaysian airports other than KLIA/KUL operated by Malaysia Airports Sdn Bhd, declined 59.2% year-on-year over March 2019 with 1.5 million passengers in March 2020. International passenger movements declined by 80.4% with 100,000 passengers.
MAHB’s network of airports (inclusive of Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport) registered 4.8 million passengers in March 2020, a decline of 59.4% over March 2019. International and domestic passenger movements registered 1.7 million and 3.0 million passenger movements with a decline of 68.9% and 50.8% respectively.
For the first quarter (Q120), airports in Malaysia registered a decline of 27.6% with 18.4 million passenger movements. International and domestic passenger movements decreased by 32.4% and 22.4% respectively.
Aircraft movements declined by 11.9% in Q120 over Q119. International and domestic movements declined by 17.5% and 8.2% respectively over Q1 2019.
KLIA passenger movements declined by 29.3% with 10.7 million passenger movements in Q1 2020.
International and domestic sector registered 7.6 million and 3.1 million passengers, a decline of 30.7% and 25.5% respectively over Q119. KLIA Main Terminal passenger movements declined by 26.5% to 5.1 million. International and domestic passenger movements declined by 28.8% and 17.0% respectively. Passenger movements at klia2 declined by 31.7% to 5.6 million passengers. International and domestic sectors declined by 32.8% and 29.4% respectively over Q1 2019.
MAHB’s network of airports registered 25.5 million passenger movements for Q120, a decline of 23.9% over Q119. International and domestic passenger movements declined by 27.8% and 20.3% with 11.6 million and 13.9 million passenger movements respectively.
Total aircraft movements decreased by 11.8% while the international and domestic aircraft movements declined by 16.1% and 8.9% respectively over the same period in 2019.
