MAHB courting five more airlines for KLIA

KUALALUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is in the midst of wooing five new airlines, a mix of full and budget carriers, to fly to the KL International Airport (KLIA).

If the efforts pay off, the new airlines would be joining KLIA’s operations next year, said managing director Datuk Badlisham Ghazali.

“I just came back from the World Routes 2017 conference in Barcelona, and (we are) talking to a few new airlines. God willing, we will have another five (new airlines) next year,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Khazanah Megatrends Forum 2017.

Badlisham said MAHB had welcomed about eight new airlines this year.

He said the company was anticipating a higher frequency volume for the overall system in Malaysia this year, adding that the year-on-year growth target had been revised upward to 8.5% from 6.5% previously.

“We will probably end up with more than 90 million or between 93-94 million passengers for Malaysia as a whole,” he added.

In 2016, MAHB saw 118.5 million passen- gers passing through its airports, including the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA) in Istanbul, a 5.7% increase from 2015.

Malaysian airports registered a 6% growth in 2016, recording 88.8 million passenger movements, while the international segment grew by 8% to 43.2 million passengers.