KLIA NOT THE SAME AS CHANGI
Over 75pc of airports in Malaysia not commercially viable, says MAHB
MALAYSIA Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) cannot be compared with Singapore Changi Airport.
The airport operator said more than 75 per cent of airports in Malaysia were not commercially viable and were managed on a cross-subsidisation model.
MAHB, which manages 39 airports comprising five international airports, 16 domestic airports and 18 short-takeoff and landing ports in Malaysia, said maintaining this network of airports involved a huge capital outlay and operational expenses.
In clarifying the issues of charges imposed on passengers, MAHB said Changi subscribed to the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s principle of nondiscriminatory airport charges.
This means that Changi, which has topped Skytrax rankings since 2013, imposes similar airport charges on all airlines.
“Changi’s charges are higher and more varied than KLIA’s, in that they include additional items such as airport levy and airport development fee which are used to pay for its airport development cost, on top of the passenger service charge (PSC).
“Despite the uniform operating conditions for full-service carriers and low-cost carriers (LCC) in Changi, its LCC international traffic volume has overtaken KLIA. This presents the case strongly for successful airports to allow airlines to compete on their own strengths within a uniform environment without losing economic value for their respective countries.
“We believe that this cannot be deemed as an ‘apple-to-apple’ comparison,” it said in a statement in response to a report claiming that the absolute lack of competition meant that any PSC could be imposed on passengers as well as any landing and parking fees and ancillary charges on airlines, since users did not have other key airports to choose from.
“After much lobbying by MAHB for the PSC to be equalised between KLIA and Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2), the Malaysian Aviation Commission raised the PSC this year for travellers using klia2 to fly to places beyond Asean from RM50 to RM73, the same rate as other airports in the country,” said the report.
MAHB said the report was incorrect as airport charges were regulated by the government.
Malaysia’s domestic PSC is RM11 and its international PSC is RM35 for Asean and RM73 for non-Asean destinations.
MAHB said 70 per cent of the international passenger traffic for Malaysia comprised foreigners who enjoyed the lower PSC when they travelled to Malaysia.
On the contrary, Malaysians and other nationalities who travelled to or from other countries paid a higher PSC at foreign airports.
MAHB said its landing and parking charges were also the lowest in the world among similar-sized airports.
Quoting a study by global consulting firm LeighFisher, MAHB said it was found that Malaysia’s charges were only one-third of the world’s average for aeronautical revenue per aircraft movement, as well as for aeronautical revenue per passenger.