KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) welcomed Cathay Pacific (CX), the flag carrier of Hong Kong, to KL International Airport (KLIA) last month after a three-year hiatus.
CX is offering weekly flights to Hong Kong from KLIA and the airport is also looking forward to the inaugural flight of Starlux Airlines (JX) from Taipei come January 2021.
These new developments cement MAHB's confident on the gradual recovery of passenger traffic at its airports.
"This new JX flight from KLIA is an addition to its Taipei-Penang route that started early this year.
"As air travel slowly returns to normalcy, the airport continues to be diligent in the implementation of various safety measures to boost passenger confidence," it said.
MAHB said Indonesia AirAsia (QZ) will resume its flight operations from Kuala Namu to Penang International Airport (PIA) effective this month.
With this resumption, QZ will be the 6th foreign airline to resume operations at PIA, said MAHB.
Local community airline Firefly will also begin operating at PIA as its second hub by introducing new routes from the airport to Kuching and Kota Kinabalu from January 2021 onwards.
MAHB said the gradual resumption of airline operations and introduction of new routes continue to provide the operator with the optimistic outlook of recovery in the aviation sector.
With the interstate and interdistrict travel ban recently lifted and the upcoming long holiday season, MAHB is expecting passenger movements to improve this month.
"Passengers can travel confidently via our airports with peace of mind as we have continuously implemented various Covid-19 safety measures since the onset of the pandemic," it said.
Recently, MAHB has introduced yet another initiative for airport guests to have a safe dining experience in the form of a contactless ordering and payment system at the food and beverage (F&B) outlets.
Guests will be able to make their order and pay online without the hassle of queueing at the counter. The new technology will be rolled out at its network of airports in phases starting with KLIA.
MAHB said the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) implemented in most states in Malaysia during the month of November affected the passenger traffic recovery.
Similarly, the re-introduction of partial curfew by the Turkish government to contain the spread of Covid-19 cases also affected operations at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport.
Nevertheless, Sabiha Gokcen airport still recorded 1.5 million passengers, significantly contributing to more than 80 per cent to the group's total passenger traffic movements of 1.8 million in November 2020, MAHB said.
As for cargo operations in Malaysia, the airport operator said the new e-fulfilment hub, Cainiao Aeropolis eWTP hub in KLIA which commenced operations last month, is timely in providing smart supply chain support to the global '11.11 Singles Day' online e-commerce sales by helping facilitate 24-hour delivery within Malaysia and 72-hour delivery to the rest of the world.
The new facility is projected to increase cargo volume by 700,000 metric tonnes, doubling KLIA's current volume to 1.4 million per year by 2029.
Current cargo operations in Malaysia continue to show resilience by recording an average of 65,000 metric tonnes a month from January to November this year compared to 78,000 metric tonnes a month in 2019, MAHB said.