KUALA LUMPUR, March 22 — The Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Langkawi International Airport (LIA) have been named among the world’s best airports in their respective categories for 2021 in a global Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey by Airports Council International (ACI).
KLIA and LIA achieved a perfect score of 5.00 in the airport categories serving over 40 million passengers per annum (mppa) and two to five mppa respectively, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said in a statement.
ASQ benchmarks the world’s best airports in terms of overall passenger satisfaction for terminal safety, facilities, services, and cleanliness.
This recent industry accolade by a global body will give added impetus to MAHB to continue maintaining high service standards, especially in view of the expected increase in passenger movements after Malaysian borders reopen on April 1, 2022.
The group recorded a total of 4.66 million passenger movements in February 2022, out of which 2.54 million passenger movements or 55 per cent were contributed by its local network of airports and 2.12 million or 45 per cent were from its Turkish asset, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISG).
For Malaysia, domestic passenger traffic movements stood at 2.27 million and international at 0.28 million while ISG registered 1.09 million domestic and 1.03 million international.
As for cargo operations, the group recorded a 17.4 per cent increase in total tonnage last month which was about 86,768 metric tonnes for both cargo operations in Malaysia as well as Turkey, when compared to the same period last year.
Malaysia’s own Kargo Xpress has started a new Kuala Lumpur – Hong Kong route.
Kargo Xpress first started out in KLIA last June and operated two local cargo flights to Kuching and Kota Kinabalu respectively.
It now offers daily flights to Hong Kong as a result of growth in demand for air cargo driven by e-commerce, postal services, transshipment, and industries requiring high-value logistics services.
In a separate Bursa Malaysia filing, MAHB said traffic will likely recover steadily over the next few months as more countries reopen borders in line with higher vaccination rates in the region, gaining further traction from the second half of 2022.
The closure of Ukraine and Russia’s air space following their current conflict has temporarily disrupted flights between Istanbul’s ISG, Ukraine and Russia (Moscow and St Petersburg).
As for Asia Pacific, the air space closure has propelled airlines to reroute flights to Europe, adding flight time and increasing fuel consumption and cost.
The group is monitoring the developments in Ukraine along with the rising jet fuel prices, and would continue assessing the impact to the group’s international traffic.
