KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said low-cost carrier (LCC) AirAsia Group Bhd has taken the airport operator’s recent statement on its role in developing the country’s low-cost aviation sector out of context.
Referring to AirAsia's yesterday statement entitled 'MAHB should present the all the facts on Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA)', MAHB refuted AirAsia's claim that they have been experiencing flat growth since the move to Terminal 1 (T1).
MAHB added the 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.
AirAsia in a statement said the airline has experienced negative growth since it moved to T1 at KKIA.
MAHB further said with regards to the incentives pay out, while all other airlines have also enjoyed the same benefit, several incentive programmes as mentioned in its earlier statement were exclusive to AirAsia from 2002 to 2009.
“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 Programme and Airlines Incentive Programmes 1, 11 & 111 were then made available to other airlines after 2009,” it said.
MAHB said AirAsia has been paid RM376 million in incentives to date, which makes up 44 per cent of the total amount of incentives paid to all airlines and making them the biggest beneficiary.