Aviation industry set to soar

PETALING JAYA: A full border re-opening in April and further relaxations on entry requirements have been the best measures to get the aviation industry back on its feet.

In a report to clients, TA Research said it does not expect a slew of direct positive measures for the aviation industry under the upcoming Budget 2023.

For the first eight months of this year, it noted airport operator Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (MAHB) total passenger movements in Malaysia expanded by 747.1% yearon-year from 675.8% a month ago, to 29.8 million which accounted for 76.5% of its fullyear forecasts.

“The decent performance was due to the relaxation of travel restrictions in Malaysia and regional countries,” said the research house. It noted visa relaxations in Saudi Arabia effective July 30 had also led to more umrah trips in August.

“Meanwhile, the ease of entry procedures for foreign travellers such as eliminating the need for traveller’s cards, pre-departure and on-arrival tests as well as home surveillance order requirements from Aug 1 for fully vaccinated travellers also contributed to the growth.”

TA Research also said it continued to believe that domestic volume will be rangebound between two million and three million passengers per month for the remainder of 2022 amid increasing seat allocations for the international segment.

“For the international segment, the seventh uninterrupted month-on-month growth since February suggests that air-travel demands to and from overseas remain encouraging, thanks to the full re-opening of international borders for countries in this region.

“Against pre-pandemic levels, there is still a long way to full recovery, considering that August passenger movements were only 35% compared to August 2019.

“Moving forward, we believe growth would be driven by further relaxations of travel restrictions in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan as well as China,” TA Research said.

It is maintaining its “buy” call on the MAHB stock with a valuation of RM7.36 per share.

At last look, the stock was trading at RM5.89 apiece, valuing the whole group at some Rm9.8bil.