KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 30): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) recorded 8.34 million passengers across its network of airports in October 2022, amounting to 71.1% of 11.68 million passengers recorded in the pre-pandemic period of October 2019, it said.

The number of passengers in October 2022 was also more than double the 4.1 million passengers recorded in October 2021, MAHB's filing showed.

The improvement was contributed significantly by traffic recovery in Malaysia, which accounted for 65% of the total figure. Passengers in Malaysia totalled 5.42 million, from 1.31 million a year ago and representing 63.2% of October 2019 levels.

This is the second consecutive month where MAHB’s Malaysia traffic exceeded five million passengers.

During the month, passenger traffic in Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport also improved 4.9% to 2.92 million passengers, from 2.79 million in October 2021 and representing 92.6% of the pre-pandemic levels in October 2019.

For the first 10 months of 2022, MAHB’s passenger count stood at 66.46 million, which represented 57% of the 116.32 million passengers recorded in the same period in 2019.

“China’s recent announcement to ease its Covid-19 measures provide optimism for the aviation sector particularly Asia Pacific, as it signals China’s readiness to move towards normalisation gradually and positively,” MAHB said, pointing to how Chinese travellers accounted for 22% of total arrivals into Southeast Asia in 2019.

“It is encouraging to note that the international passenger movements have remained above the three million mark since July, recording a new high of 3.7 million passengers in October 2022, steadily reaching more than 63% of 2019 levels since September 2022,” it added.

In terms of aircraft movement, MAHB’s network saw a 55.2% year-on-year increase in October to 67,789 flights from 43,688 flights in October 2021, despite a slight decrease in Istanbul due to decline in domestic aircraft movements. It recorded 96,878 flights in the network in October 2019.

In the 10-month period, the network saw a 97.6% increase to 604,107 flights, from 305,672. This also represents 64.91% of 930,742 flights recorded in the network in January-October 2019.

MAHB closed at RM6.43 on Nov 30, which was 16 sen or 2.55% higher compared with the closing price on Nov 29, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM10.67 billion. The counter has increased 7.53% year-to-date, from RM5.98 per share.