SEPANG - The Malaysia Airports Group (Malaysia Airports or the Group) continues to record more than 11 million total passenger movements for the second consecutive month in August 2023 at its network of airports in Malaysia and Türkiye. Malaysia contributed more than 66% or 7.4 million of the total 11.2 million passengers. Meanwhile, the Group's Türkiye operations registered 3.8 million passenger movements, a 3% increase from the 3.7 million passengers registered in the preceding month.
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 had also recorded the highest average total daily passenger movements for the year at 240,000 passengers. This was partly driven by the six state elections on 12 August, the extra public holiday declared on 13 August post-election, and 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.
More airlines have also restructured their routes with available active fleets that are in operations resulting in more flights deployed to the Northeast Asia region, as well as routes resumption to pre-pandemic destinations. A myriad of airline activities took place last month such as the commencement of daily Lombok-KLIA and Surabaya-KLIA flights by new airline, Super Air Jet (IU) and daily Chennai-KLIA flights by Batik Air Indonesia (ID).
Meanwhile, Batik Air Malaysia (OD) introduced six-times weekly KLIA-Auckland flights, four-times weekly KLIA-Okinawa flights and twice-weekly KLIA-Jeddah flights. For route resumption, AirAsia (AK) resumed KLIA-Vientiane flights with 4 weekly frequencies whereas Batik Air Malaysia (OD) resumed daily KLIA-Hong Kong flights. Penang International Airport (PEN) was also a beneficiary of newly launched AirAsia (AK) flights to Hong Kong thrice‐weekly, as well as daily flights to Kuala Namu by Batik Air Indonesia (ID).
Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport’s total passenger movements at 3.8 million passengers continue to exceed 2019 levels in August 2023, with a growth of 8.4% over the same month in 2019. International and domestic passenger movements registered 1.9 million respectively in August 2023. 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 frequency each.