MAHB rebukes Tony Pua over comments on PSC at klia2 and KLIA

PETALING JAYA: The klia2 is not a low-cost airport terminal but a second permanent terminal for KLIA that will accommodate future growth, Malaysia Airports (MAHB) said.
It said klia2 must serve the needs of the country's current and future civil aviation industry and has no bearing on the Passenger Service Charge (PSC) rates.
"In January the government had made the decision to equalise PSC for the two terminals in KLIA and all other airports in Malaysia.
"This was done after an extensive study conducted by the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) on aviation charges across industry and Mavcom has stated its position that the equalisation will facilitate an environment of fairer competition between airlines operating at these two terminals.
"It will ensure Malaysia is aligned to international guidelines, including with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) principle of non-discriminatory pricing at airports," Malaysia Airports said in statement in response to Tony Pua's criticism over the equalisation of the PSC at klia2.
He claimed that the PSC was to enable Malaysia Airports Bhd to tackle its cost overruns.
He said klia2 was supposed to be a low-cost terminal and panned the explanation given by Mavcom that the PSC between klia2 and KLIA should be equalised as the two airports provided a similar quality of service.
MAHB pointed out that it had provided numerous clarification on klia2's development cost of RM4 billion whereby the development of klia2 took into consideration all the needs of its stakeholders.
"Numerous explanations had been given to Tony Pua along with the other members of the Public Accounts Committee that klia2 development had undergone significant scope increase due to changing requirements by the key stakeholders, including government agencies and AirAsia.
"Based on AirAsia's growth projection, klia2 was built for a capacity of 45 million passengers, an increase of 50% over the original planned capacity of 30 million passengers at the cost of RM2 billion.
"Current traffic performance at klia2, has been validated the decisions klia2 had registered passenger traffic movements of 27 million passengers in 2016, barely three years after it begun operations in May 2014" MAHB said.
The airport operator said since January the PSC rates have been equalised for all airports at RM73 for non-Asean, RM35 for Asean and RM11 for domestic, with the exception of non-Asean PSC rates specifically at klia2 that remained at RM50.
MAHB said the new tier for Asean PSC rate saw a reduction of 46% from RM65 to RM35 that benefited about 18 million passengers.
It said 70% of the non-Asean international passengers at KLIA and klia2 terminals are foreigners and unaffected by the PSC rates.
"This last phase of equalisation is for non-Asean international PSC at klia2 from RM50 to RM73, involving about 4.5 million departing passengers a year of which about 70% or three million are foreigners," it said.
MAHB pointed out that in the case of domestic PSC – the same rate is applied in Lahad Datu Airport and in KLIA regardless of differences in available facilities.
MAHB said PSC rates remain one of the cheapest in the region and in the world, even after the full equalisation.
Mavcom executive chairman Jen (Rtd) Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad said the government will be forced to fork out RM60 million in subsidies if the PSC for long-haul international flights between KLIA and klia2 are not equalised.
He said passengers using the airport should rightly take up the higher charges and not the Rakyat, some of whom have not even entered an aircraft or taken a flight.