KUALA LUMPUR (March 24): Driven by the school holidays in Malaysia and increased flight frequencies by airlines in Türkiye, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) recorded higher daily average passengers for its 39 airports in February, compared to last month.

“Despite February being a shorter month, total passenger movements at the group’s network of airports continued to be buoyant, and recorded higher daily average passengers by 1,400 compared to January 2023,” MAHB said in a statement on Friday (March 24).

The airport operator registered total passenger movements of 8.3 million in February, lower than the 9.08 million logged a month prior, with its 39 airports in the country recording 5.8 million passengers in February, with a higher average daily passenger movement of more than 3,480 passengers compared to last month.

“The increase by 4% over the preceding month for international average daily passenger movements was mainly contributed by the growth of passengers for the South Korea, China and Japan sectors,” it said, adding that while China is still in an early phase of recovery, the sector’s passenger movements rose 61% month-on-month.

“Domestic passenger movements were equally positive due to the school holidays, with more than 112,000 average daily passengers, about the same daily passenger levels seen in January,” it continued.

Meanwhile, the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Türkiye recorded total passenger movements of 2.5 million in February, comprising international and domestic passenger movements of 1.3 million and 1.2 million respectively.

The group said the airport experienced a slight slowdown in overall daily traffic after the earthquake that struck southern and central Türkiye, but noted that passenger movements picked up and reached 92.9% recovery against the average daily passengers prior to the earthquake in the remaining days of February.

“Pegasus Airlines had also added new service to Plovdiv, Bulgaria with twice weekly frequencies from Feb 18, 2023,” it added.

Shares in MAHB closed three sen or 0.44% higher to RM6.78, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM11.25 billion.