KLIA can be among top 20 busiest by 2020

<!–GA_googleFillSlot(“Business_Story_toptext”);–>

bksidhu@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: KL International Airport (KLIA) is today the 27th busiest airport in the world by passenger volume and by the turn of the decade it is expected to join the ranks of 20 busiest.

Maybank Investment senior analyst Mohshin Aziz told StarBiz that this projection was itself attractive for any airline that was ambitious to be a global player not to overlook flying into KLIA.

KLIA’s connectivity, traffic volume, a thriving domestic market and that it houses Asia’s biggest low-cost airline hub, also count as factors attracting these airlines.

But only a decade ago, KLIA saw the departure of British Airways (BA), Lufthansa and Qantas.

Full service carriers also need business traffic for the yields besides connectivity and traffic volumes and that is where KLIA paled then in comparison with its rivals Singapore’s Changi and Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi.

But things have certainly taken a drastic turn since.

Today, KLIA has 56 airlines flying out of the hub, three more will join by May 1, and by yearend KLIA could have more than 60.

Lufthansa returned some years ago, Air France comes back on April 23 after 30 years, Turkish Airlines and Philippines Airlines, after a decade of absence.

“The whole economic make-up of KL has changed, there is strong economic growth, more foreign companies are based here than a decade ago, the number of business travellers are higher and there is a huge domestic market and Malaysia is more visible on the tourism map,” said an expert.

The wining of several awards including “best airport in the world’ in its category helps it attract more airlines.

Airport Council International, a body that tracks the movement of passenger and aircraft traffic in global airports on Tuesday released its preliminary figures in which KLIA stood at 27th place for handling 39.8 million passengers in 2012.

Suvarnabhumi is ranked 14 with 53 million passengers, Changi a notch lower with 51 million, and Jakarta at 9th place with 57 million passengers, mainly due to a thriving domestic market as its growing middle class population takes to the skies.

Suvarnabhumi and Changi will continue to be a threat to KLIA but they also have their own issues of space and slots.

“How much more can these airports grow, and Suvarnabhumi already has the widest connectivity, how much more can it grow?

“And if you look at Soekarno Hatta, it is always packed and getting prime slots can be a challenge and the same is for the other two, especially at night and both airlines and passengers hate delays,” said Mohshin.

Mohshin felt that KLIA had all the building blocks in place to attract airlines, the slots, the space and the volume.

Though KLIA will never be number one, he believes it can be number two or even three.

“It is all about growth and growth and infrastructure efficiency, and KLIA has that,” he added.

Whether BA and Qantas return or not, the volume coming from Asian and Middle Eastern carriers is sizeable and Mohshin said KLIA should focus on that more.

Besides BA and Qantas, MAHB is courting several airlines including Jet Airways, SpiceJet and Indigo to use KLIA, and it will be no surprise if it adds one or two more for this year.

KLIA can be among top 20 busiest by 2020