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MAHB: 2012 Traffic Report

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MAHB: 2012 Traffic Report

05-Feb-2013

MAHB operated airports handled a record 67.2 million passenger movements in 2012, 5.0% above 2011. The growth could have been higher if not for the fact that there was significant reduction in capacity and termination of services by local carriers in late 2011 and early 2012. The international passenger traffic achieved 6.1% growth while the domestic sector registered a 3.9% increase. KLIA registered 5.8% passenger growth for 2012. The international and domestic traffic registered 6.4% and 4.4% growth respectively. In 2012 there were 66 airlines operating at KLIA to 120 destinations. Frequencies operated per week in December 2012 increased by 179 for international and 50 for domestic as compared with December 2011. The Main Terminal handled 20.6million passengers while the LCCT handled 19.3million passengers.

December recorded the highest ever passenger movements handled by MAHB group of airports with 6.6 million movements. Foreign airlines recorded the highest growth in 2012 by 10.1% followed by AirAsia Group's 9.6% growth. AirAsia's market share of the traffic increased to 47.1%, by another 2% from 2011. Malaysia Airlines(MAS) Group registered a 2.3% decline in passenger movements though on a standalone basis MAS posted a 2.7% growth. Firefly's termination of jet services and cancellation of routes in late 2011 and early 2012 brought significant loss in passenger numbers for MAS group in 2012. Nevertheless, the last two months of 2012 has seen significant improvements in MAS group traffic whereby its traffic grew by an impressive double digit year-on-year 10.1%.

Cargo movements continued the downslide by another 1.4% in parallel with the world's decline of 1.5% announced by the International Air Transport Association(IATA). Aircraft movements registered a 2.3% reflecting some capacity reductions.

IATA has estimated 2013 global passenger growth at 4.5% and cargo growth at 1.4%. The current economic uncertainties including that at Europe and USA, and lower growth in China are negative factors expected to lower down the growth.

MAHB expects passenger performance for 2013 to be better in view of increased vigour from both low cost and conventional airlines. AirAsia group, Malaysia Airlines and also foreign airlines have already and also are in the process of further increasing their capacity offerings. The new requests to operate additional frequencies and routes both at the international and domestic levels have been encouraging. One World partnership and A380 operations are expected to give additional lift for Malaysia Airlines. Entry of Malindo Air, Air France and another one or two established airlines will add to the market out reach. Ongoing promotional efforts for Visit Malaysia Year 2014 would provide further impetus to the air travel demand expansion.

Assuming a GDP in the range of 4.5%-5.5%, it is estimated that MAHB airports passengers would grow by 7.1% in 2013. This is assuming the global economic scenario does not turn to be worse and the oil prices remain in the current range 100USD -110USD. Good growth is expected in both low cost and conventional segments. Aircraft growth is expected to register a higher growth in view of higher capacity expected to be offered by airlines. Cargo is expected to remain at 2012 level as latest monthly trends has not indicated any positive development for cargo.