MAHB should present all the facts on KKIA — AirAsia
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) should stop cherry-picking data to suit its agenda and instead be an honest partner and work with AirAsia in the best interest of Sabah, said AirAsia Malaysia Chief Executive Officer Riad Asmat.
He was referring to a recent statement titled Malaysia Airports confirms that Sabah air traffic and tourism are growing, in which MAHB suggested that negative growth in 2014 and 2015 at Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) was the reason for wanting to move AirAsia to KKIA Terminal 1 (T1).
“By focusing on those two years, MAHB would have the public believe that passenger traffic had long been on the decline and that this trend could only be reversed by moving AirAsia out of T2. This could not be further from the truth,” Riad said in a statement yesterday.
AirAsia operated from T2 from mid-2004 up until December 2015, when it was compelled to move to T1 in light of amenities and facilities being made unavailable for its operations then, he noted. During that period, KKIA’s passenger traffic grew year-onyear every year, except in 2014 and 2015.
The decreased traffic at KKIA during those two years had nothing to do with T2, Riad said, pointing out that it corresponded with a drop in visitor arrivals to Sabah, especially from China, which the Minister of Tourism and the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents had attributed to a series of kidnappings in the state, including of Chinese nationals in two separate incidents in April and May of 2014.
Since AirAsia began operating to Kota Kinabalu, AirAsia had expanded its network there from two to 16 routes currently, including six unique routes, and grown its passenger traffic by 25 per cent per annum since 2001, he revealed.
“Not only that, we have greatly reduced fares between Kota Kinabalu and Peninsular Malaysia, including to secondary cities that had no direct service before,” he said.
Given Kota Kinabalu’s importance to AirAsia, the lowcost carrier wished to continue enhancing its air connectivity and had big plans to make KKIA into a hub for services into China, South Korea, Japan and India, and a transit point between Australia and North Asia, Riad said.
Based on AirAsia’s projections, the airline can increase its fleet size at Kota Kinabalu from the current eight aircraft to 45, including 10 Airbus A330s, over the next 10 years.
“This would more than triple our current capacity and make it possible to operate direct services to key markets such as northern China, South Korea and Japan, as well as Australia and India, allowing AirAsia to carry 18 million passengers to and from Kota Kinabalu by 2028.
“However, we cannot do this while we remain constrained by the higher cost base at T1,” he said.
The Sabah state government is looking to complete the construction of a new airport in a few years, and Riad said AirAsia had requested that an LCC (low-cost carrier) terminal be considered for inclusion in the master plan.
“In the meantime, T2 can be revived for LCC use, which would also free up T1, which is rapidly approaching capacity, for fullservice carriers,” he said.
AirAsia was prepared to take up the costs of refurbishing T2, “which MAHB had neglected to maintain or upgrade in a bid to move AirAsia to T1,” Riad said.
“It will be better than before, and there will be no cost to MAHB or the state government. All we ask is a chance to continue growing Kota Kinabalu to its truest potential for the benefit of Sabahans, as we have always done,” he added.
In its statement, AirAsia included an artist’s impression of the refurbished T2.