KUALA LUMPUR: The government has rejected the request by Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad (PMB), the parent company of Malaysia Airlines (MAS), for a 10 per cent increase in domestic air fares, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy said yesterday.
However, this did not mean that the government had totally rejected the request but only that “the government is not in favour at this point of time”, he said.
“Of course there is a ground (for domestic fare increase) as the last MAS domestic fare increase was 13 years ago,” he told reporters after gracing the graduation ceremony of Sheffield Hallam University here.
He did not give the reasons for the decision which was made a couple of weeks ago.
PMB recently submitted a proposal to the government, requesting a 10 per cent fare increase for all domestic flights operated by MAS.
Asked whether the decision would remain even after the full domestic aviation rasionalisation plan was announced after March 27, Chan said: “Yes, even after the rasionalisation plan being announced, we are not in favour”.
On whether the decision would affect MAS’ business turnaround plan, he said it was too early to tell.
He said, however, that the government had approved PMB’s reguest to increase the fuel surcharge for the domestic sector to RM36 from RM15 for flights between the peninsula and Sabah and Sarawak and RM15 (from RM7.50) for flights within peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. The fuel surcharge on rural air services remains at RM7.50. He said fuel prices had gone up and it was only fair to review the surcharge.
“With the review, they (MAS) can recover 30-40 per cent. They just absorb additional cost increases, just to help them recover a little bit more.” he said.
MAS first imposed domestic fuel surcharge in the middle of last year while for the international routes, the national carrier had raised the surcharge three times since it was imposed.
Courtesy of New Sabah Times
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