KK has potential to be second aviation hub
KOTA KINABALU: The Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) has the second largest passenger traffic market in Malaysia and it has the potential to be the bona fide second aviation hub of Malaysia, after the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) Chief Operating Officer Azmir Zain said this during a press conference on the release of Mavcom’s inaugural industry report at Le Meridien here yesterday.
The report revealed that Malaysia is currently Asean’s third most connected country and it also has the third largest passenger traffic growth in Asean.
Since the inception of Mavcom, it had issued out 183 new international air traffic rights and 90 per cent of it were issued for destinations within Asia, thus indicating the geographical focus of the Malaysian carriers.
“In particular for Sabah, Mavcom had issued 29 air traffic rights, comprising 16 new international air traffic rights and 13 new domestic air traffic rights.
“Twelve of the international air traffic rights had been for destinations within China and the other four were spread across the various destinations within the Asia Pacific region, in particular South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
“This is basically an indication of the growing interest in Asia Pacific in Sabah as the preferred travel destination,” Azmir said.
An air traffic right enables a commercial carrier to fly from one location to another and it is procured by the Ministry of Transport (MOT).
Once MOT has procured the traffic rights, it will then pass it on to Mavcom so that the latter can allocate it between the individual carriers of the country.
A key highlight from the report had included Mavcom’s forecast for passenger traffic in 2017 to grow between 7.8 per cent and 8.8 per cent, which is approximately equivalent to between 98.3 million and 99.2 million passengers.
“Sabah, in 2016, had grown by 10.5 per cent. So, passenger traffic in Kota Kinabalu was at 7.26 million passengers and we expect the figure to continue to grow, at least at the same rate as Malaysia, overall,” Azmir disclosed.
Mavcom had also introduced a new evaluation process for commercial licences, both for carriers (scheduled and nonscheduled) and also for ground handlers, as we are responsible for airport licences as well, he said.
“For your information, in Sabah today, there are seven air service permit holders. Basically, they are holders of commercial licences for nonscheduled operations and there are 11 licensed ground handlers operating in Sabah.
“So all together, there are currently 18 commercial license holders in Sabah, which were all issued by Mavcom,” Azmir said.
He stressed that the purpose of the evaluation process was to ensure that all licence holders are commercially feasible and financially healthy, so that they can continue to adhere to safety requirements.
As part of its licensing work, Mavcom had identified 15 companies which are need of financial improvement.
On a separate note, Azmir disclosed that, last year’s review by Mavcom on the country’s Passenger Service Charges (PSC) had led to an introduction of a lower Asean PSC tier for all airports in Malaysia.
The said review had also paved the way for a more gradual move towards the complete equalisation of the PSC and the development of the framework to incentivise improvements in airport service levels.
Mavcom was established on March 1, 2016 under the Malaysian Aviation Commission Act 2015. It is an independent entity to regulate economic and commercial matters related to civil aviation in Malaysia.
Mavcom’s role differs from those of the MoT and the Department of Civil Aviation. It is responsible for industry policymaking and government-to-government discussions (including to spearhead bilateral or multilateral negotiations on traffic rights), while the DCA shall continue to regulate technical and safety matters for Malaysia’s civil aviation industry.