MALAYSIA AIRPORTS HANDLED 34.3 MLN PASSENGERS AT KLIA IN 2010

SEPANG, Jan 15 (Bernama) –- Malaysia Airports handled 34.3 million
passengers last year at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), an
increase of about 14.8 per cent from the 29.1 million passengers recorded in
2009.

Its senior general manager operations services Azmi Murad said, the
growth was almost double from what the airport operator anticipated for the
year, which was about eight per cent.

"We saw an increase in terms of frequency from airlines that are operating
to KLIA, particularly from the Middle East," Azmi added.

He was speaking to reporters after receiving Garuda Indonesia’s new Boeing
737-800 aircraft for its operations to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport,
here.

Azmi noted that Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways had increased
their frequency to Malaysia throughout last year.

At the same time, low cost carrier AirAsia and Air Asia X had also
contributed to the strong growth.

"AirAsia X is connecting passengers from Australia to the Low Cost Terminal
before transferring them to Europe," he explained.

On another note, Azmi said the improved global economic weather was also
contributing to the growth in passengers at the KLIA.

KLIA in 2006 was ranked the 13th busiest airport in the world by
international passenger traffic.

As for this year, he said Malaysia Airports was targeting about a seven
per cent growth in passengers handling.

"This year, we already have one new airline, Firefly Jet. Today, the airline
began operations from here with two flights to Kuching and Kota Kinabalu
respectively.

"This is going to be quite positive for us. We expect to see a good number
of passengers using Firefly," he added.

Commenting on Garuda Indonesia using the bigger Boeing 737-800 new geneation
aircraft for its operations to Kuala Lumpur from Saturday, Azmi said:"It is also
going to contribute to the increase in passengers from the republic."

According to Malaysia Airports, it processed a total of 3,896,054 passengers
from Indonesia last year, an increase of 7.3 per cent from 2009.

Meanwhile, Garuda Indonesia’s vice president marketing, Don Jusuf Palito
Bustan said, the new aircraft which would increase load capacity up to 40 per
cent,would significantly multiply the number of passengers travelling on this
high demand route.

"The market potential market is still open to us.We see the traffic as being
good. That is why we are using the new aircraft," he added.

Don Jusuf also said that the Indonesian flagship carrier was preparing
itself to leverage on Asean’s Open Sky Policy, which comes into effect in 2015.

"We not only plan to increase the frequency but also the destinations such
as from Jakarta to Penang or Medan to Kuala Lumpur," he added.

According to him, the people from Medan always flew to Penang to seek
medical treatment using other airlines to get to the island.

Besides using the bigger aircraft, Garuda Indonesia is also increasing its
frequency from Jakarta to twice daily -vice versa - from thrice a week,
previously.

-- BERNAMA