The Malaysian Insight

THE Penang International Airport marked a 15.21% increase in international passenger arrivals last year compared to 2017, another sign that the airport badly needs to be expanded, the state government said.

From 1.54 million international passengers in 2017, the number increased to 1.78 million last year.

Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said the airport had been recording double digit growths every month last year in international arrivals.

In January, the airport saw a 12.35% jump in total international arrivals and a 14.18% increase in December. The highest increase was in March at 21.03%.

As for the total passenger movement in and out of the airport, irrespective of local or foreign passengers, the increase was at 7.59% from 7.23 million to 7.78 million people, according to figures from Malaysian Airports Bhd.

Penang Global Tourism general-manager Ooi Chok Yan said the airport was operating exceeding its capacity of 6.5 million passengers while the number of direct flights at the airport were increasing.

“Last year, we had more international direct flights. As of November last year, we had 283 international direct flights each week to Penang.

“That was a 21.9% growth from the previous year’s 232 flights. We have also been seeing increased flight frequencies,” he said in a press conference at Komtar today.

Last year, several new direct flights were introduced at the Penang International Airport. Among them were to Hanoi and Phuket by AirAsia; Surabaya and Jakarta by Citilink; Doha by Qatar Airways; and Banda Aceh and Nanning by Malindo Airline.

There were also several airlines increasing their flight frequencies per week between Penang and Hong Kong, Doha, Taipei, Phuket and Jakarta.

“This means the airport’s expansion is overdue,” Chow said, adding that the passenger movement figures simply showed how congested the Penang airport was.

“The state government is still waiting for good news from the relevant authorities, although several parties have briefed us on the proposed expansion.

“There is still no final decision yet. The proposals to increase the airport capacity to 12 million passengers had been on the table by MAHB even before the 14th general election,” he said.

Chow said the Transport Ministry is still looking at restructuring the concessions and managements at all airports.

He said Penang had also received proposals but because the airport was under federal jurisdiction, the state needed to wait for the federal government to decide.

“So we are waiting for the federal decision on how soon Penang will get its airport expansion. We hope it will be expedited. We hope for a decision to be made this year.”

Without an expansion, he said Penang will not be able to grow its tourism sector, and attract new direct flights, or allow airlines to increase the frequencies of existing flight routes.

“It is a logistic constraint for us to grow,” Chow added.

Penang is a popular tourism destination and a place to retire.

Earlier, Chow presented a RM1.425 million in allocation to 12 Chinese national schools in Penang.

The funds are to aid the schools to fund new building projects, upgrade and repair to their existing facilities, install new wiring and others. – January 14, 2019.