Sunday, August 20, 2017

Government planning to expand KLIA after 2020 - Abd Aziz Kaprawi

KUALA LUMPUR: The government plans to expand the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) after 2020 as passenger traffic is expected to increase by more than 30 per cent, says Transport Deputy Minister Datuk Abd Aziz Kaprawi.

He said the long-term plan would include a new satellite terminal building.

According to him, after studying the pace of development of the aviation industry in the country, it was found that KLIA would only be able to cope with the existing number of passengers until 2020.

"The number of passengers passing through KLIA has increased dramatically. In 2016, there were 89 million passengers as compared to 45.2 million in 2006, which is close to a 100 per cent increase.

"This is an achievement, thus making KLIA a transit hub in the region which is on par with Changi Airport, Singapore and Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand,\" he said when contacted by Bernama today.

Earlier at the Dewan Negara sitting, Abd Aziz responded to a supplementary question from Senator Datuk Mohd Salim Bin Sharif @ Mohd Sharif who wanted to know the number of passengers handled by KLIA and the government's future plans for the airport.

On another matter, Abd Aziz said the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) always ensured there was fair competition among airline companies and prohibited any form of unfair competition in the aviation services market.

"However, Mavcom does not impose any ruling on the airline companies' flight schedules as this is the individual company's commercial decision and the welfare of passengers is not compromised.

"Instead, passengers are given more leeway to plan," he said in reply to Senator Abdullah Mat Yasim who wanted to know what the government was doing in relation to airlines having almost similar flight schedules.

Source: Bernama | 16 August 2017

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