The Subang Airport terminal. MAHB senior general manager (strategy) Megat Ardian Wira Mohd Aminuddin said growth plans for Subang Airport will now depend on MAHB’s new shareholders, Gateway Development Alliance. (Photo by Shahrill Basri/The Edge)
PERTH (March 26): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB), which was taken private by a Khazanah Nasional Bhd-led Gateway Development Alliance Sdn Bhd (GDA) consortium earlier this year, is currently assessing Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport’s (Subang Airport) growth plans to align it with the under-review Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Master Plan.
MAHB senior general manager of strategy Megat Ardian Wira Mohd Aminuddin said in an interview with The Edge that further growth plans for Subang Airport will now depend on MAHB’s new shareholders.
“We are engaging with them [GDA] to review that [Subang Airport's growth plans] as part of the KLIA Master Plan as well because of the close proximity, so it goes together with the total KLIA master plan development,” said Megat Ardian.
“KLIA always has the priority. When we increase slots in KLIA, there will be a lot more flights coming in KLIA. The growth that will be coming in will impact the Subang airspace as well. This is where the priority will be given to KLIA so we can’t increase the slots in Subang,” he said when asked if there were plans to increase slots given the high demand, on the sidelines of Routes Asia 2025 on Wednesday.
Subang Airport, he said, will complement KLIA’s capacity instead of compete with it.
"This approach is aligned with the new direction set by MAHB’s shareholders, who have placed a strong emphasis on improving connectivity and building a stronger aviation network to support Malaysia’s growth," said Megat Ardian.
The Subang Airport Regeneration Plan (SARP) has come under the spotlight in recent weeks following AirAsia’s plans to relocate its jet operation back to Terminal 2 (T2) of KLIA just eight months after it started flying out of the airport.
Jet operations were brought back to Subang Airport after a 26-year hiatus in August 2024. The airport was upgraded between 2023 and 2024, where passenger capacity was increased to three million annually in July 2024 from 1.5 million.
The expansion plan aims to further increase the airport’s capacity to five million passengers annually within the next three to four years and up to eight million by 2030 under the SARP.
AirAsia will relocate its jet operation to KLIA T2 from April 7, vacating its five slots at Subang Airport.
Other airlines that currently fly out of Subang Airport include Firefly, Batik Air Malaysia, Scoot (Singapore) and TransNusa (Indonesia).
Megat Ardian said it is set to farm out the five slots vacated by AirAsia to other airlines over “the next few weeks”.
“We will study the requests [from the airlines] to see how many consist of local and international carriers, which routes [the airlines are taking] — as we don’t want to impact KLIA. We are also in discussions with Mavcom [Malaysian Aviation Commission] to see which routes that we can give traffic rights to,” he added.
Separately, Megat Ardian shared that MAHB had “good discussions” with the AirAsia delegates at Routes Asia 2025 where the airport operator is working with the no-frills air carrier with its growth plans over the next five years on new routes and increasing frequencies of existing routes.