AirAsia knows what it's talking about
Published on: Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Sabah DAP urged the State government not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg by agreeing to low-cost airline Air Asia shifting from the Terminal 2 (T2) of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) to Terminal 1 (T1) .Its Secretary Dr. Edwin Bosi (pic) said AirAsia had already pledged to develop KKIA into a key international hub with Asean interconnectivity and also China, India, Indochina, Korea and Japan.Furthermore, he said it also pledged to increase its fleet from six A320s currently to 18 A320s by 2020 and a possible base A330 aircraft for long range operations. The low-cost airline is expected to grow three times bringing in about 10 million passengers by 2020.
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"DAP Sabah is concerned about the 'tussle' between AirAsia and Malaysia Airport Holdings Berhad (MAHB) where the latter including the Ministry of Transport (MOT) wanted the low-cost carrier to transfer its operations from T2 to T1 at KKIA by 1st August 2015. "But according to Tan Sri Tony Fernandez the group CEO of AirAsia, his airline will not move to T1 and requested MAHB to sit down together to grow tourism, create more jobs, make the number of tourists to Sabah increase, and make KKIA a hub like Dubai," he said .Dr Edwin said the party wants to see AirAsia play a positive role in Sabah's economic growth and the government must always be reminded how tourism has become an important revenue earner for the country."The Sabah government expected tourism receipts for RM6.5 billion in 2015. Unfortunately Sabah has been struck with a spate of kidnappings including murder, armed intrusion and a 5.9 Richter scale earthquake that has hampered the tourism industry.
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"Despite this negativity, AirAsia continues to be optimistic in bringing in more passengers into Sabah. "Hence, we must not dampen AirAsia's resolve but to assist it to achieve its objectives. Sabah needs the tourism revenue more than ever to develop the country, provide mobility, meaningful employment and business opportunity to Sabahans," he said.
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Dr Ediwn said the party also acknowledged that there will be some infrastructure limitations of Terminal 1 for a fast growing low-cost carrier like AirAsia.But he said they understand the role of AirAsia as a low cost carrier (LCC) with an appropriate slogan "now everyone can fly". "Kota Kinabalu is AirAsia's second biggest hub in Malaysia with 400 domestic flights per week and 118 international flights per week. "In 2014, AirAsia passenger carriage was 3.6 million or 52pc of the total passenger traffic at KKIA, approximately 10,000 arriving and departing passengers per day," he said.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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