M’sia to see continued growth in air passenger volume — Mavcom chief

KUCHING: The Malaysian aviation industry is poised for continued growth in passenger traffic this year.

According to Malaysian Aviation Commission ( Mavcom) chief operating officer Azmir Zain, total passenger traffic this year is expected to grow by 7.8 to 8.8 per cent.

“Malaysia’s passenger traffic market — the third biggest in Asean — grew 10.4 per cent yearon-year ( YoY) for the first seven months of 2017, totalling 56.9 million passengers.

“The forecast of 7.8 to 8.8 per cent for passenger traffic this year is approximately equivalent to between 98.3 million and 99.2 million passengers compared to 91.2 million passengers in 2016,” he told reporters during a Mavcom media briefing at a leading hotel here yesterday. Azmir pointed out that this key factor was also highlighted in Mavcom’s first industry report called ‘Waypoint’ issued last month, a bi- annual report that aims at providing a historical review and an outlook for the Malaysian aviation industry.

“We gathered the opportunity to size up how well the industry has performed over the last six to seven years (2010 to 2016) and the report also provides commentary on current issues that are affecting the industry,” he explained.

Waypoint focuses on five specific areas which are key to understanding the aviation sector; namely industry outlook, macro overview, industry structure, industry performance, and airports and infrastructure.

Overall, the aviation industry contributed an average of RM5.1 billion annually between 2010 and 2015 to the domestic economy.

Azmir also noted that based on the report, Malaysia has seen improvement in its connectivity with the number of international destinations served by Malaysian airports increasing from 107 in 2010 to 116 in 2016, the third highest in Asean (for 2016) after Singapore (153) and Bangkok (151).

He also touched on Mavcom’s Consumer Report based on 1,639 complaints lodged with the commission between March 2016 and February 2017.

“The highest percentage of complaints that were lodged with us was on refunds, making up 55 per cent of the total complaints received. This was followed by mishandled baggage at 10 per cent and flight cancellations at nine per cent,” he disclosed.