Dato’ Iskandar Mizal Mahmood returns to Malaysia Airports after almost 20 years with his wealth of experience gleaned from many multinationals and government- linked companies to elevate and transform Malaysia Airports in the fast-changing aviation landscape with new travel norms and innovative technological advances.
This month, he is happy the newly opened first capsule hotel at KL International Airport (KLIA) will further help enhance the airport experience for passengers alongside efforts made its other stakeholder Express Rail Link Sdn Bhd (ERL) to rename KLIA stations after the recent rebranding of our flagship airport into Terminal 1 (T1) and 2. The further easing of travel protocols and resumption of more airline flight connectivity leading to increase passenger volume have improved the group’s revenue for the first quarter 2023 (1Q23).
As our airport operations move towards providing more innovations, we are always mindful of supporting our passengers with hospitable conveniences and elevating their experiences at our airports. The recent unveiling of Capsule Transit at KLIA T1 will provide more options to travellers seeking for short-stay accommodation in airport hotels.
We also view ERL’s recent completion of the renaming of the KLIA stations into T1 and T2 to be moving in tandem with our rebranding exercise which has been endorsed by our government.
I am glad to announce that Malaysia Airports’ group revenue rose 3.1% to RM1,034.4 million for 1Q23 from the preceding quarter’s RM1,002.8 million. Revenue from our airport operations also increased by 3.6% to RM960.7 million while our aeronautical segment revenue grew to RM553.8 million due to higher passenger traffic of 18.7 million passengers registered from our Malaysian operations. Additionally, our non-aeronautical segment revenue was up 6.2% to RM406.9 million for 1Q23.
Since the start of this year, we have seen Air Arabia, China Eastern Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines Ethiopian Airlines and our local carriers such as AirAsia Malaysia, Batik Air Malaysia, MYAirline and Malaysia Airlines resuming operations to many international destinations as well as starting new routes.
Full-service Batik Air Malaysia, which recently launched direct services from KLIA to Maldives and Seoul Incheon, will be starting thrice weekly direct service to Adelaide this month. I would like to congratulate MYAirline, after six months of operations, for achieving its one million passengers and embarking on its first international destination to Bangkok on June 28.
The recent advent of new low-cost carriers such as Wings Air and T’way Air from Indonesia and South Korea respectively coming to our shores also augur well for the growth of our aviation industry.
Shanghai Airlines, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Eastern Airlines, is reinstating daily direct flights to Kota Kinabalu (BKI), Sabah while AirAsia will be commencing daily flights from Beijing to BKI on July 2. The latter is also starting its four times weekly flights from Macau to BKI on July 16.
Meanwhile, the number of pilgrim passengers travelling to our airports for the hajj season this year has also increased, contributing to our total monthly growth in passengers the last few months.
We see all this as positive development, including the increase in flight frequencies by various airlines in the coming months.