KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 11): Shares of Malaysia Airports Holdingd Bhd (MAHB) rose 3.02% this morning after the company said airports in Malaysia registered 6.85 million passengers in January, an increase of 3.2% compared to the 6.64 million passengers recorded a year ago.

At 9.15am, MAHB rose 17 sen to RM5.80 albeit on thin trading volume of 25,700 shares.

In a statement yesterday, the airports operator said the growth was contributed by pre-Chinese New Year traffic, as well as the additional traffic carried by new airlines that started operations in 2015.

“The international and domestic sector recorded 3.5 million and 3.3 million passengers, an increase of 6% and 0.3%, respectively,” MAHB said.

It added that the growth was higher than expected, despite cuts from Malaysia Airlines, as the airline’s withdrawn capacity was filled by both local and foreign carriers.