SUBANG (Aug 30): AirAsia, the low-cost airline of Capital A Bhd (KL:CAPITALA), will begin its 14-times per week flights from the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang, Selangor (Subang Airport) to Sabah and Sarawak from Aug 30, with an Airbus A320 narrow-body aircraft.

The return to the Subang Airport is a historic event for AirAsia, which launched its first operations from the same airport 24 years ago, it said.

“Reintroducing narrow-body aircraft operations here is a step towards modernising this historic airport into a vibrant city terminal that will serve as a centre for business travellers,” Capital A chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said at the launch of the inaugural flights to East Malaysia on Friday.

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Fernandes expects that AirAsia’s return to Subang Airport will significantly enhance connectivity within Malaysia and across the region.

“We will grow as fast as we can - this is going to be a popular airport,” he said when asked on the company’s target for domestic passenger volume at Subang Airport.

AirAsia is currently Malaysia’s largest airline by capacity and the carrier with the widest domestic network, with 40 routes across the country, and a total of 1,860 return weekly domestic flights by the end of December 2024.

In 2023 alone, AirAsia carried over 14 million guests across its domestic network of 918 flights, weekly.

Besides AirAsia, two other airlines, including Malaysian Aviation Group’s low-cost arm Firefly and Indonesian airline TransNusa have started their jet operations out of Subang Airport from Thursday (Aug 29).

Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines Ltd’s low-cost carrier Scoot will deploy its Airbus A320 aircraft for the Singapore-Subang daily flights from Sept 1 this year.

Since 1998, Subang Airport has been limited to handling only propeller-driven aircraft, such as turboprops, business jets, helicopters, and light and military aircraft.

In April 2021, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (KL:AIRPORT) unveiled its Subang Airport Regeneration Plan (SARP) - a RM1.3 billion plan that includes transforming the old airport into a city airport that can serve about five million passengers a year - after three years in the works.

At the time of writing on Friday, Capital A shares fell two sen or 2.5% to 77 sen, valuing the company at RM3.32 billion.

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