PERTH (March 27): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is targeting to bring in more long-haul operations from Europe and other regions.

“Our next focus going forward will be on wide-body operations (long-haul operations). Most of these wide-body operations will come from Europe,” said MAHB senior general manager of strategy Megat Ardian Wira Mohd Aminuddin at the conclusion of the Routes Asia 2025 conference here on Thursday.

MAHB will be attending the Routes World 2025 event in Hong Kong that will take place at the end-2025, where Megat said there will be a chance for the airport operator to engage in strategic discussions with more airlines from the European continent.

The local air carriers in Malaysia are concentrated on narrow-body centric aircrafts, meaning that the airlines cater for more short- to medium haul flights.

“When you compare with the likes of Bangkok and Singapore, their national carriers have a lot more wide-body aircrafts, and they also have a lot more foreign carriers coming in from longer-haul flights. So, what we’re trying to do, since our local airlines are concentrated on narrow-body operations, is to target a lot more longer-haul airlines,” shared Megat.

Besides Europe, MAHB is also looking at several North African airlines, as well as some from the Middle East.

MAHB’s target for 2025 is to attract a minimum of 12 new intentional airlines to operate in Malaysia.

Megat said while the “hunt” for new airlines is an important aspect of the airport operators’ growth, what is equally important is its “farming” strategy — where MAHB works with the existing slew of airlines operating in Malaysia, both local and foreign, to increase frequencies of its flights and to add new routes to the portfolio.

“We also work with them on possible upgauging from a narrow-body to a wide-body aircraft. We have a very robust incentive programme for them when they add new routes, new frequencies, and when they add growth,” Megat added.

Megat shared that meetings with the 18 targeted airlines at Routes Asia 2025 have been positive, but added that there will be ongoing discussions and follow-ups with these airlines, following the meetings here.

He also said that MAHB has had a chance to connect and share with many other airport operators who were present at the event.

“This is where we want to work on city pair initiatives (with the airports). There’s always that initiative and the data sharing, as well as some incentive programmes that they have and shared with us, to see how we can develop the route. So, there are a lot of potential airport partnerships on a route-to-route basis as well,” he explained.

Routes Asia 2026 will be held at the Xi’an International Conventional and Exhibition Centre in China in March next year, co-hosted by China West Airport Group and Xi’an Xianyang International Airport. 

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