KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd
(MAHB) saw its net losses in the first quarter ended March 31,2021 (1QFY21) widen sharply to RM221.29mil as revenue was severely impacted by the prolonged MCO and interstate travel ban.
In its announcement to Bursa Malaysia on Friday, MAHB said the net losses in the previous corresponding quarter was RM20.38mil. The first MCO was imposed in mid-March 2020.
MAHB’s loss before tax (LBT) in 1QFY21 widened sharply to RM280.5mil as compared to LBT of RM35.5mil a year ago due to the decrease in revenue.
“However, the LBT was cushioned with the reduction in core operational expenses by 22% as compared to the corresponding quarter driven by the group’s continuous cost containment initiatives, ” it said.
MAHB’s Malaysia operations recorded LBT of RM180.5mil as compared to profit before tax (PBT) of RM800,000 a year ago.
Its Turkey operations recorded a LBT of RM100.8mil versus LBT of RM39.3mil a year ago. The Qatar operations recorded a lower PBT of RM800,000 as compared to PBT of RM3mil a year ago.
“The higher losses however were cushioned with the recognition of deferred tax asset arising from the current period business losses. Accordingly, the group recorded loss after taxation (LAT) of RM221.3mil, ” it explained.
As for its revenue, MAHB said 1QFY21 saw a decline of 63.9% to RM336.91mil from RM933.83mil a year ago.
The sharp fall was in tandem with the significant contraction in passenger movements of 76.9% due to the prolonged MCO and interstate travel ban
MAHB said revenue from airport operations declined by 66.7% to RM291.9mil. Revenue from the aeronautical segment fell 71.6% to RM142.6mil.
Passenger traffic for the Malaysia operations contracted significantly by 90.8% (international: -96.6%, domestic: -85.3%) to 1.7 million passengers as compared to 18.4 million passengers a year ago.
The passenger traffic for Turkey operations contracted by 40.8% (international: -55.6%, domestic: -31.8%) to 4.2 million passengers as compared to 7.1 million passengers a year ago.
Non-aeronautical segment decreased by 60.2% to RM149.3mil largely due to lower duty free revenue, lower commercial rental revenue impacted by sharp contraction of international passengers.
MAHB said revenue from the non-airport operations fell 19.8% or RM11.1mil due to lower revenue from the hotel and project and repair maintenance businesses.
Overall, Malaysia and Turkey operations had recorded a decrease in revenue by 75.2% to RM163.4mil and 39.5% to RM152.2mil respectively. Qatar operations recorded a slight decrease in revenue from RM22.0 million to RM21.3 million
MAHB’s network of airports recorded 5.9 million passengers in 1QFY21, down by 76.9% on-year.
During the same period, the group’s traffic for international and domestic passengers contracted by 87.1% and 68.3% respectively.
Correspondingly, the group’s aircraft movements decreased by 58.1% with both international and domestic aircraft movements decreasing by 75.1% and 63.8% respectively