‘5 MORE AIRLINES MAY LAND AT KLIA’

At least 2 carriers will be from countries not yet present at airport, says Badlisham

LIDIANA ROSLI

KUALA LUMPUR bt@mediaprima.com.my

MALAYSIA Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is hopeful that five new airlines will be making their way to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) next year.

Managing director Datuk Badlisham Ghazali said at least two of the new airlines would be from countries that were not yet present in KLIA.

“I have just returned from the World Routes Forum 2017 in Barcelona, Spain, where multiple discussions were held and I am hopeful that at least five more new airlines will join us next year,” said Badlisham at the Khazanah Megatrends Forum 2017, here, yesterday.

“We are always actively looking for partners and new airlines to join us. For 2017, we already saw eight new airlines joining us, and since everything in aviation is seasonal, we are not expecting any more new airlines for the rest of the year,” he said.

Badlisham also expects traffic at local airports to surpass last year’s 88.83 million passengers. Passenger traffic at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang hit 88.83 million last year. Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd managing director Datuk Badlisham Ghazali (inset) says it is always actively looking for partners and new airlines.

Incidentally, passenger traffic at KLIA surpassed the 50 million mark for the first time last year.

“We have seen really good passenger volume in the third quarter and we are expecting to sustain this trend until the end of the year. We are also expecting November and December to be bumper months as people typically travel at the end of the year,” he said.

“Our original (growth) forecast (for passenger volume) was at six per cent this year, but we have

revised that to eight per cent, and I believe we may end up at some 90 million this year for Malaysia as a whole.”

When asked on his 2018 Budget wishlist, Badlisham noted that a number of airports under MAHB’s care needed infrastructure upgrading.

“We have the volume, but we need more capacity (upgrading) for airports infrastructure and that’s something the government has to look into,” said

Badlisham, adding that the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang had already hit its maximum capacity.

“In fact, Kota Kinabalu and Penang require some infrastructure funding in the (next) couple of months.”

MAHB said its international traffic in August increased by 15.8 per cent year-on-year to 5.5 million passengers while domestic traffic rose by 1.3 per cent to 5.9 million.