IPOH: The Perak state government will form a committee with AirAsia to study possible new flight routes to and from Ipoh, including domestic routes.
State tourism, industry, investment and corridor development committee chairman Loh Sze Yee said the decision was made following discussions with AirAsia’s headquarters, RedQ, on March 27.
"During our discussion, AirAsia proposed forming a joint committee to assess the feasibility of expanding flight routes from Ipoh to other destinations," he told the reporters after a site visit to the Sultan Azlan Shah Airport on Friday (March 28).
Loh added that AirAsia has also suggested replacing the Ipoh-Singapore route with an Ipoh-Johor route. Factors such as landing costs and existing aircraft placements were considered in this proposal.
"A positive announcement regarding this route replacement will be made soon," he said.
Loh added that one of the challenges with the airport is the lack of data on travel demand beyond the Ipoh-Singapore route.
However, he said that AirAsia has offered to share its data, including passenger demographics and travel trends, to help evaluate the viability of new routes from Ipoh.
Meanwhile, he added that the state government also held discussions with Scoot Airlines on March 26, proposing that the airline take over the vacant slots left by AirAsia in Ipoh.
"Our discussion was positive and there is potential for Scoot to increase the aircraft capacity on its Ipoh routes. This would require further discussions with Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) including safety factors," Loh said.
He added that Scoot currently operates the Airbus A320, which has a capacity of about 180 passengers. A potential shift to the Airbus A321, which carries an additional 50 passengers, would need to be evaluated for safety considerations.
Aside from AirAsia and Scoot, he said that the state government is also in talks with other airline operators to explore options for fully or partially chartered flights.
"For Ipoh, point-to-point flights from one city to another are challenging to establish. Instead, we are looking into the possibility of positioning Ipoh as a transit hub, similar to Scoot’s model for connecting passengers between airports," Loh said.
The support.airasia.com website under its travel notice states that about 17 routes, including the Ipoh-Singapore one, would be suspended.
Speaking on his visit to the airport, he said that the airport optimisation plan for phase 1 is over 90% complete.
"We have added two self-service baggage drops at the check-in counters and have also added four immigration departure counters.
"We have also added the roof extension to the arrival and departure site to ease passenger who que there," he said.
It had been reported that the Federal Government has approved the RM60mil to expand the airport.
