Malaysia Airports signals hope for potential travel recovery in months ahead

MALAYSIA. Malaysia Airports has said that the nationwide roll-out of vaccines from April and reciprocal green lane / travel corridor arrangements with Indonesia will help aviation recover in the months ahead.

Malaysia and Indonesia this month agreed a reciprocal green lane scheme to facilitate bilateral travel, subject to approval by health authorities in each country.

Malaysia Airports Group CEO Dato’ Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh said he hoped that airport front liners will be among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Since the start of the pandemic, we have been vigilant in ensuring the highest safety standards at the airport so that people can travel safely. The national vaccination programme will certainly help our efforts. With the programme in place, we also hope that more travel bubbles can be implemented similar to the one that will happen between Indonesia and Malaysia, perhaps with other countries within Southeast Asia (SEA). Pre-COVID-19, nearly 50% of our international traffic was from the SEA region.”

Malaysia Airports hopes that further travel bubbles within Southeast Asia can be agreed to allow aviation recovery

For now, passenger movements across the Malaysia Airports network remain very low, with numbers falling by -82.6% year-on-year in January to 2.1 million. This included 800,000 in Malaysia (-91.6%) and 1.3 million at Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen International (-55.4%).

The performance at Malaysia Airports-operated Sabiha Gökcen, with over one million travellers in the month, “indicates the underlying demand and significance of air travel in Turkey” said the airport company.

Despite the sharp year-on-year drop in passenger traffic in Malaysia, international numbers still increased by about +25% compared to the preceding month. This, said the company, “underscores the latent demand for travel especially for business, employment and education purposes”.

Last month, Kuala Lumpur International welcomed Starlux Airlines’ inaugural flight on the Kuala Lumpur-Taipei route. This twice-weekly route is an addition to Starlux’s Taipei-Penang route that started last year.

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