This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on May 20, 2024 - May 26, 2024
AT a glance, especially pre-pandemic, Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s (KLIA) performance does not appear to be all that different from its competitors Changi Airport in Singapore and Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok in terms of passenger traffic.
In 2019, KLIA recorded 62.33 million passengers flying through its two terminals, which is on a par with Bangkok’s 65.43 million passengers and Singapore’s 68.3 million passengers. In fact, the volume of passengers handled by the three Southeast Asian international hub airports — major connection points for airlines — are not that far off from Hong Kong International Airport’s passenger traffic movements of 71.29 million passengers in 2019.
However, a closer look at the data shows that KLIA lags behind Changi and Suvarnabhumi in terms of international connectivity.
Compared with other major hub airports in Southeast Asia, KLIA had the third-largest total international passenger traffic and the second-highest number of international hub traffic in the first nine months of 2023 (9M2023), according to a review done by the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom).
Changi had the highest total number of both international passengers and international hub passengers than other airports in Southeast Asia.
Both KLIA and Changi had relatively high proportions of international hub (transit) passengers, at 24% and 22% respectively.
In contrast, the proportion of international hub traffic for Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta was 15%, 11% and 7% respectively.
Despite Suvarnabhumi’s high international passenger traffic, it had the fourth most international hub passenger traffic in Southeast Asia, even though it has a higher volume of origin and destination (O&D) passengers, as its international hub traffic contributed only 8% to the total number of international passengers.
In its “Malaysian Aviation Industry Outlook December 2023”, Mavcom attributed this fact to “Bangkok’s being a popular destination for passengers travelling to Thailand, instead of operating as a hub for passengers to travel elsewhere”.
Suvarnabhumi enjoys more direct air connectivity of international destinations than KLIA, though.
The top three international hub airports in Southeast Asia by direct international destinations in 9M2023 were: Changi, with 134 direct international destinations and a connectivity score of 102.1; Suvarnabhumi, with 106 direct international destinations and a connectivity score of 89.1; and KLIA, with 95 direct international destinations and a connectivity score of 59.9.
Malaysia also has lower direct connectivity to European aviation hubs than Singapore and Thailand. According to Mavcom, only 1.8% of Malaysia’s total international seat capacity is attributed to flights to European hubs, compared with 8.1% for Singapore and 9.5% for Thailand.
“The limited direct connections to major European destinations may impact Malaysia’s potential for tourism and its aspiration to become a leading aviation hub. This underscores the importance of strategic efforts to enhance long-haul direct connectivity for the country,” says Mavcom.
Although KLIA has higher international hub traffic than Suvarnabhumi, the larger proportion of direct capacity deployed from both Bangkok and Singapore airports to Europe than from KLIA shows that it is only a short- to medium-haul hub in the region.
“For KLIA to better compete with Changi and Suvarnabhumi in the European region, the airport operator needs to attract more airlines that can deploy more seat capacity between KLIA and Europe,” Mavcom says in its policy recommendation report.
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