By Balqis Jazimah Zahari
IPOH: The state government has agreed to form a Special Committee to discuss a new, suitable flight route at Sultan Azlan Shah Airport (LTSAS) here.
Chairman of the Tourism, Industry, Investment, and Corridor Development Committee Perak, Loh Sze Yee, said the decision was made after discussions with AirAsia recently.
He said the establishment of the committee was also a response to AirAsia’s announcement last week of suspending flights between several cities, including the Ipoh-Singapore route.
“We would like to reiterate that AirAsia had never consulted the state government before making that decision. However, we respect their decision as they are a private company and must manage their profits and losses.
“But, we also want to stress that the Ipoh-Singapore route has indeed received a high demand, so there’s no issue with flights lacking passengers,” he said at a press conference after a working visit to LTSAS.
He mentioned that following this, he held meetings with Scoot Airlines and AirAsia.
“One of the reasons for the suspension they informed us was the higher ‘margin’ and operating costs for flights to Singapore Airport compared to other airports.
“During the meeting with Scoot’s management, we suggested they take over the vacant slot left by AirAsia in Ipoh, and they were positive about it.
“Meanwhile, AirAsia suggested replacing the Ipoh-Singapore flight route with Ipoh-Johor,” he said.
As a result, he stated, AirAsia also proposed setting up a joint Special Committee to study the new route from Ipoh.
“The state government has agreed, and we have appointed officers who will collaborate on this Special Committee.
“Besides Scoot Airlines and AirAsia, we are also in discussions with other industry players about possibly operating full chartered flights or semi-chartered flights, and so on, for regional or transit flights,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sze Yee said the upgrade work at LTSAS now is 90 percent complete.
“The upgrades have been carried out at the ‘Check-In Counters’, immigration counters for passenger departure, and immigration counters for passenger arrival,” he said.
He added that upgrades have also been made to the roof extension in the terminal for both departure and arrival halls.
Other upgrades include improvements to various aspects such as toilets, security screening areas, and the holding lounge, which is now twice as large as before.
