Dato’ Iskandar Mizal Mahmood returns to Malaysia Airports after almost 20 years with his wealth of
experience gleaned from many multinationals and government-linked companies to elevate and transform Malaysia Airports in the fast-changing aviation landscape with new travel norms and innovative technological advances.
This month, as Malaysia’s air travel industry picks up momentum in the first quarter of 2023 withthe reconnection of more routes plying between Kuala Lumpur (KL) and other destinations such as Hanoi, and several cities from mainland China, he is also happy that Malaysia’s latest low-cost carrier MYAirline is marching on with another new route to Miri. The airport operator’s other hub in Kota Kinabalu is also witnessing more flight activities with departures heading for Shenzhen and Guangzhou following the recent reopening of the China market.
Having achieved a total 52.7 million passengers in 2022 with the introduction of new routes by 27 airlines to 38 cities, we are not resting on our laurels to have more new routes being resumed or making their debut at our flagship KL International Airport (KLIA).
Making a strong rebound, AirAsia Aviation Group not only relaunched seven international destinations to China but also followed them up with increased flight frequencies in March.
Other airlines such as Vietnam Airlines is resuming its Hanoi-KL sector on March 26 for the summer while MYAirline is debuting its eighth destination to Miri from its KL hub.
I am proud to announce that our Aviation Marketing and Development team, which was at the recent Routes Asia 2023 in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to drive future growth at our airports with more route developments, was also there for the handover ceremony as Langkawi will be the host venue for the 20th Routes Asia event in 2024. Through our strategic partnership with Tourism Malaysia, we will not only market Langkawi but also Malaysia as an attractive destination to the region’s route development community.
Meanwhile, having recently obtained in principle approval to operate and manage the 39 airports and STOLports in Malaysia until 2069, the new Operating Agreements 2023 reflect the government’s confidence in our capabilities and experience while affirming our airport network framework and cross- subsidisation model.
We will continue to ensure the commercial sustainability and facilitate the growth of our country’s airports managed by us. This includes the upgrading of the Subang Airport, which currently serves eight domestic and two international passenger routes. We are also grateful that the government has agreed to our proposal to rebrand KLIA and klia2 to Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 respectively as this will enable us to market the airport’s services more effectively, which will in turn strengthen KLIA’s position as a regional hub.