KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) expects passenger traffic from China to Malaysia to increase by nine per cent this year from 5.1 million passengers last year.
MAHB managing director Datuk Badlisham Ghazali said he was confident of this target as there was a healthy inflow of tourists from China into Malaysia.
“Last year, we saw a total of 52 million passengers pass through Kuala Lumpur international airports (25 million in Kuala Lumpur International Airport and 27 million in klia2).
“We are seeing healthy passenger traffic flow from China. We recorded 5.1 million passenger traffic from China alone last year,” said Badlisham.
He said from Hong Kong alone, 1.5 million passengers travelled to and from Hong Kong and Malaysia last year.
Badlisham, who was appointed managing director of MAHB three years ago, said the company was aggressively helping existing airlines increase the frequency of their flights into the country and was in constant dialogue with new carriers to develop routes into airports in Malaysia.
He added that KLIA would undergo refurbishment starting from next month, beginning with upgrading the toilets and surau at the main airport.
Badlisham was speaking at an event to celebrate the inaugural Cathay Dragon flight to KLIA from Hong Kong International Airport.
This will be Cathay Dragon’s third flight to Malaysia. It already operates 11 weekly flights to Penang and five daily flights to Kota Kinabalu, both from Hong Kong.
The twice daily Hong Kong-KLIA flight will increase to four flights daily starting May, said Cathay Pacific country manager for Malaysia & Brunei Anna Choi.