KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd clarified that KLIA2 is not a low-cost airport terminal.
In a statement MAHB said the reference by Petaling Jaya Utara Member of Parliament, Tony Pua, over a report published by an online portal two days ago was incorrect.
“MAHB together with the government, had made the strategic decision to build a second permanent terminal for KLIA that will accommodate increased capacity requirements, or in other words, future growth.
“In building it, we considered and accommodated the needs of all stakeholders including airlines, government authorities and the community. This was a necessary approach because an airport system is a long-term public infrastructure that must serve the needs of the country's current and future civil aviation industry. This development has no bearing on the Passenger Service Charge (PSC) rates,” it read.
MAHB said in January 2017, the government had made the decision to equalise PSC for the two terminals in KLIA and all other airports in Malaysia.
“It was done after an extensive study conducted by the Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) on aviation charges across industry. Since then the PSC rates have been equalised for all airports at RM73 for non-ASEAN international, RM35 for ASEAN, and RM11 for domestic, with the exception of non-ASEAN international PSC rates specifically at KLIA2 that remained lower at RM50.
“In fact, the new tier for ASEAN PSC rate was introduced at a reduction of 46 percent from RM65 to RM35 that benefitted about 18 million passengers and made the airlines more competitive for the ASEAN routes, as part of the government's efforts in attracting more tourist arrivals from within the ASEAN countries,” it said adding that there is a PSC rate mechanism that is already in place by the government in our Operating Agreement.
It stressed that the PSC fee increment announcement was not a ‘method’ for the company to deal with any debt obligations of MAHB as quoted by Pua in the article.
It added that the PSC rate is independent of the cost of airport development. Whereas some other countries charge passengers with a separate airport development fee in addition to the PSC, this is not the case in Malaysia.
“Our PSC rates remain one of the cheapest in the region and in the world, even after the full equalisation”.
In the statement, MAHB added that it also had explained to Pua during the PAC session that after numerous engagement sessions with key stakeholders, KLIA2 development had undergone significant scope increase due to changing requirements by the key stakeholders, including the government agencies and AirAsia.
Pua had claimed it was unreasonable to equalise the fees charged by both the KLIA2 low-cost terminal and the KLIA for full-service airlines by claiming their facilities were comparable.