Travel Drought No More

After a long travel drought, all five international airports in Malaysia are seeing an increase in passenger movements with 55 out of 89, or 62% of foreign airlines resuming operations at the airports.

This is hugely contributed by the reopening of international borders in April and the easing of travel entry requirements which has seen KL International Airport (IATA Code: KUL), Langkawi International Airport (IATA Code: LGK), Penang International Airport (IATA Code: PEN), Kota Kinabalu International Airport (IATA Code: BKI) and Kuching International Airport (IATA Code: KCH) to receive foreign travellers again.

With travellers filing the airports again, this has caused the Malaysia Airports Group to register 1.7 million international passenger movements in August 2022 for its Malaysia operations, which is a 7.1% increase from the previous month.

In a statement, Malaysia Airports said that it recorded the highest passenger volume for the year at 7.9 million passengers.

“Among the airlines that introduced new international destinations last month included Batik Air Malaysia which commenced Phuket from KUL with seven flights weekly. Malaysia Airlines commenced two new direct services, KUL – Haneda with two flights weekly and BKI – Singapore with three flights weekly and Firefly resumed Phuket service from PEN with four flights weekly.

“Other than the resumption of flights and introduction of new routes, other factors that contributed to the increase were relaxation of visa requirements by Saudi Arabia leading to more Umrah flights,” it said in the statement.

Meanwhile, domestic passenger movements for Malaysia operations recorded 3.1 million passengers and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (IATA Code: SAW), 1.6 million which are respectively 65.7% and 79.1% of pre-pandemic levels in 2019.