Malaysia Airports Sees Strong Momentum On Traffic Recovery And Expects To Benefit Further With Implementation Of More Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTL)
29th November update:
Sepang – Malaysia Airports announced its financial results for the nine months ended 30 September 2021 (9M21), reporting revenue of RM1,121.7 million. Revenue for its operations in Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISG), Turkey, rose 51.1% to RM616.4 million, cushioning the 57.7% contraction in revenue for Malaysia, as compared to the same period last year. Its Malaysia operations recorded revenue of RM440.5 million, while the Group’s Qatar operations recorded an increase of 8.9% to RM64.7 million.
Meanwhile, the Group registered corresponding EBITDA for 9M21 of RM67.2 million, with Turkey operations reporting an increase of 73.3% to RM458.8 million, while the Malaysia and Qatar operations recorded an EBITDA of -RM398.0 million and RM6.4 million, respectively. The Group continues to contain its core costs with a reduction of 11.7% or RM139.1 million, in line with the Group’s commitment to further reduce expenditure in a sustainable manner above and beyond FY20’s 26% reduction.
The Group continues to see strong momentum on traffic recovery with the gradual relaxation of travel restrictions. In October 2021 alone, Malaysia Airports recorded 1.3 million passenger movements in Malaysia, significantly higher than the overall 1 million passenger movements recorded for the three months ending 30 September 2021. Domestic traffic in Malaysia witnessed sturdy growth following the lifting of the interstate travel restrictions as average daily passenger movements increased two-fold to 48,000 for the second half of October.
The same uptrend was observed in Turkey, where ISG recorded 2.8 million passenger movements in October 2021, despite the end of the peak summer season. This was also higher than the preceding month’s performance at 2.7 million passengers. Flights from ISG had resumed to all 37 pre-COVID domestic destinations while staying connected to 93 international destinations. This had enabled ISG to reach the highest volume since April 2020.
November marks the beginning of the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) for the KUL-SIN route and the Langkawi Travel Bubble for international tourists, boosting air travel and the tourism sector. Malaysia is also working on the upcoming travel corridor with Indonesia which will further contribute to the increase in international passenger movements. The positive developments that are taking place locally and globally to resuscitate the tourism and aviation sector provide optimism for better prospect on traffic recovery in the months to come.