SEPANG: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is confident that its passenger traffic will hit 85 million this year.
The target is seven per cent higher than the 79 million passengers that the airport operator handled last year.
MAHB chief financial officer Faizal Mansor said the traffic growth will be driven by strong global demand for travel, adding that the impact of Malaysia Airlines’ (MAS) Flight MH17 and MH370 tragedies would have only a temporary effect on demand.
“We believe we can achieve the seven per cent easily due to strong international and domestic travel demand. Although the two incidents have changed our business strategies, we remain optimistic that we will achieve our target,” he said after announcing MAHB’s second-quarter results, here, yesterday.
On MAS’ European routes after the MH17 crash, Faizal said according to the national carrier, there are no major cancellations.
He said there are 60 airlines currently flying out of Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2.
“We are in discussions with a few airlines to fly out of these airports.”
MAHB slid 0.5 sen to close at RM7.60 yesterday after reporting a net loss of RM44.67 million in the second quarter ended June 30 2014, from the net profit of RM101.75 million in the same period last year.
This was attributed to higher operating costs from increased user fee, and staff and utility costs, which totalled some RM129 million, RM252.4 million and RM140.1 million, respectively.
MAHB also incurred a one-off cost as it recognised the previously unrecognised non-cash losses upon acquisition of an additional 40 per cent stake in Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport amounting to RM42.5 million.
MAHB’s revenue rose to RM1.17 billion from RM978.10 million a year ago due to 11.8 per cent passenger growth in the six months.
“The growth was driven by strong air travel demand within Asia Pacific and outpaced the overall global passenger growth rate of 6.2 per cent thsi year,” Faizal said, adding that MAS was the largest contributor to MAHB’s revenue as it carried some 35 per cent international passenger traffic to Malaysia.
For the first half of 2014, MAHB recorded a net profit of RM84.04 million compared with RM227.81 million last year, while revenue fell to RM1.96 billion from RM2 billion.
Meanwhile, the company has called for an open tender for the “proposed conversion and short-term utilisation of the former low-cost carrier terminal” yesterday.
Business Times reported last week that MAHB is believed to have planned to convert the old terminal into a cargo and logistics hub as early as next year.