Commuter airline MASwings, which currently only serves the travel needs of Sabah and Sarawak, is banking on expanding its services to the BIMP EAGA region by October this year, said its managing director Salleh Tabrani.
The move, it is hoped, will create a growth driver for the Malaysia Airline’s wholly owned and loss-making subsidiary. Some 75 per cent of its routes under the Rural Air Services (RAS) are not commercially viable but are undertaken as a social obligation whereby the Government subsidises the losses, The Star reported.

“We have conducted a comprehensive study of the feasibility to operate the routes and will make an announcement soon with regard to our expansion plan,” he said.

Salleh was speaking to reporters who attended the handover ceremony of the ninth and second last ATR 72-500 by ATR, the southern France-based maker of turboprop aircraft and subsidiary of EADS. The delivery of the last 10th aircraft is scheduled for April this year.

Some of the new routes being considered include Brunei, southern Philippines, and Kalimantan and Sulawesi in Indonesia.

“This will be a major milestone for us as we will move from becoming just a domestic player to a regional airline,” Salleh said.

The airline is also awaiting approval from the Transport Ministry to ply some new routes which it hopes to launch in October this year.

“But we will still continue to fulfil our obligations to meet the travel needs of Sabah and Sarawak by expanding our frequencies and current network in these states,” he reiterated.

The delivery of the ninth aircraft, which took place over the week, is part of the airline’s widespread fleet renewal programme which involves the phasing out of its Fokker 50.

To date, it has managed to phase out all but one of its eight Fokker 50 and expects to cap it by first quarter of this year when it takes delivery of the final ATR. “We hope to return the F50 to PMB (Penerbangan Malaysia Bhd) by the first quarter or April,” he said.

The airline has forked out some RM700mil for the purchase of 10 aircraft, which Salleh said had managed to reduce its cost per seat by 25 per cent and increase its load factor significantly.

According to Salleh, the commuter airline chalks up a revenue of some 150 million ringgit a year, which also comes from other sources such as ground handling services.

It counts seven airlines including MAS, Royal Brunei Airlines, Korean Airlines and Dragon Air as its customers.

“MAS has to bring down the losses every year to a more comfortable level. We hope that by expanding our services to include international services, some of these profitable routes will subsidise the losses even more,” Salleh said.

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