KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — Malaysian Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said AirAsia has chosen to take its earlier statement out of context by saying the airport operator implied negative growth was the reason for the airline’s move to Kota Kinabalu International Airport’s (KKIA) Terminal 1 (T1).
In a statement today, MAHB said its intention was to refute AirAsia’s claim of experiencing flat growth since moving to T1.
“Data has clearly shown that after the consolidation of operations, there was indeed substantial traffic growth at KKIA, as a whole, as well as for the AirAsia group, thereby contributing to a rise in tourism traffic for Sabah,” it explained.
On incentives paid out, MAHB said several incentive programmes from 2002 to 2009 were exclusive to AirAsia.
“The exclusive incentive was mainly for domestic traffic to support the growth of unchartered low-cost travel then. Subsequently incentive programmes such as the Airlines Recovery Programmes and Airlines Incentive Programmes 1, 11 & 111 were then made available to other airlines after 2009,” it said.
The low-cost carrier had been paid RM376 million in incentives to-date, or 44 per cent of the total amount of incentives paid to all airlines, which made it the biggest beneficiary, MAHB said.
Yesterday, AirAsia Malaysia Chief Executive Officer Riad Asmat said AirAsia was prepared to take up the cost of refurbishing KKIA Terminal 2, which he claimed MAHB had neglected to maintain or upgrade when it decided to move AirAsia to T1.
Meanwhile, in a separate statement today, Riad said that there was no special treatment given to AirAsia on the three incentive schemes (ARP, Airlines Incentive Programme (1) and Airlines Incentive Programme (11)), as it were applicable to all airlines, not just to AirAsia.
“We merely made the best use of available incentives,” he said.
In return, Riad said AirAsia has, since the start of operations in 2001, contributed at least RM3.5 billion in revenue to MAHB in the form of aeronautical charges — landing, parking, aerobridges, check-in counters, Passenger Service Charges and Passenger Security Service Charges - and other charges, such as rental, utilities and more.
“Any growth AirAsia experiences directly contributes to MAHB’s coffers. For every RM1 in incentives we get, we give back at least RM9.33 to MAHB — and that is just in terms of direct contributions.
“If we look at indirect contributions from the retail, food & beverages and duty-free revenue that MAHB earns from our guests, that is another RM44.39 per RM1 in incentives just for the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2) in 2017 alone,” he said.
Riad did not deny MAHB’s role in the early success of AirAsia. However, he noted that MAHB had undone much of its good work.
“Malaysia was the first country in Asia to have an LCC terminal. Now, there are none left. Meanwhile, the rest of the world continues to move towards LCC terminals - Tokyo Narita, Osaka Kansai and Frankfurt all understand the need for dedicated low-cost infrastructure.
“In time, we hope MAHB will come to the same realisation so that, together, we can make Malaysia the “Dubai of Asia”,” Riad added. — Bernama
