MASwings embarks on fleet improvement programme

KUCHING: MASwings recently embarked on a fleet improvement programme to improve the reliability of its planes.

Chief executive officer Capt Izham Ismail said the airline company is looking into aircraft maintenance and the location to do so.

“Currently, we send our aircraft to Kuala Lumpur for heavy maintenance. We are thinking of opening up a maintenance centre in Miri or Kota Kinabalu but we have not been decided yet,” he told a press conference after paying a courtesy call on Assistant Tourism Minister Datuk Lee Kim Shin yesterday.

Currently, MASwing has 10 ATR aircraft and six Viking aircraft for its daily operations in Sarawak and Sabah.

“As you know, most of our ATRs are aged between eight and nine years old. MASwings and Malaysia Airlines as a group, are looking at this fleet improvement programme very seriously.

“We have started this programme and we should see some improvements by the fourth quarter of this year. It is not an overnight fix, but we will fix it,” he said.

On whether MASwings is planning to purchase new aircraft, Izham said as the number of aircraft at present is sufficient, this would be an unnecessary investment as such funds should instead be used to open up new routes for rural air services.

He said MASwings’ current year to date on time performance was 85.4 per cent.

“However, disruptions do happen. Our aircraft do breakdown sometimes because of the tight network that we run. Our most important objective is to ensure that when there is a disrupted flight, our passengers are well taken care of.

“They should be informed early and if we can reconnect them, we will reconnect them,” he said.

Izham added on average MASwings flies around 4,000 passengers per day in both Sarawak and Sabah.