SUBANG JAYA – Malaysia’s newest low-cost airline, MYAirline Sdn Bhd, aims to be listed on Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd in the next three years, said chief executive officer Rayner Teo.
“As any company with shareholders, there are plans to list the company and we will try to list on Bursa Malaysia as soon as we have capabilities in three years,” he said in an exclusive interview with Bernama, here recently.
In pursuing this journey, Teo said plenty of factors and work are involved in order to ensure the airline is well-positioned to be listed within the timeframe.
To lease 17 Airbus A320
He also said the airline has signed a deal for 17 Airbus A320-200 aircraft on a lease basis and aims to lease a total of 20 narrow-body aircraft by end-2023.
“Technically, we are operating with five aircraft today and an additional one, which hit a delay in delivery recently. We are pushing very hard so that the operation will be back to normal,” he said.
Recently, the carrier announced that it experienced technical issues which had caused flight delays and cancellations. The delayed addition of a new aircraft into its fleet, which could have resolved the matter by acting as a spare, was another reason for the disruptions.
“We are basically on narrow-body operations on the basis of a low-cost carrier while focusing on short haul. So, we are keeping to a range of four hours for narrow body and we also keep to the single family type aircraft,” he said, adding the airline would consider models within the A320 family such as longer and fuel-efficient planes in the future.
More routes, strong demand
Elaborating further on the airline’s route expansion, Teo said MYAirline operates eight routes, namely Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, Langkawi, Kota Baru, Penang, Tawau, Sibu, and Miri.
“By April, the ninth route will be operational, connecting Kota Kinabalu to Tawau, an intra-Sabah route. We will be exploring other domestic sectors as well and the team has been busy doing market studies for Sandakan and Bintulu,” he explained.
He also noted that the team has been heavily focused on launching several regional routes with an eye on neighbouring countries initially.
“Obviously, it would be Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam and we are busy engaging with relevant regulators in these countries to get the flights up as soon as we could.”
Teo also foresees strong demand for air travel post-Covid-19 and the aviation industry has made a healthy comeback recently, especially within the region.
“Based on the fact that we are quite new, the ability to mount additional flights is limited and we could not mount extra flights during Chinese New Year. However, we are planning to have one or two additional flights for Aidilfitri and we will only be utilising a small portion of our spare plane.
MYAirline currently has almost 600 employees, including about 100 pilots. It is also constantly updating the latest offerings via its website and mobile app.
“We should end this year with approximately 1,000 employees,” said Teo.
“We were called crazy for wanting to start an airline during (the) Covid-19 (pandemic) where all the planes were basically grounded but we believed timing is very critical and, at the same time, (we are) able to get assets with attractive deals... and demand will come back strongly,” he added.
On sustainability efforts, he said being green has been one of the main agendas in operating the airline, with the setting up of a document management system as the first move to go paperless, followed by bringing in the first eco-friendly and ergonomic aircraft seats in the country.
“On replacing fuel with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), it may not be the right timing because of the cost but we do believe very strongly that SAF would be the future and we will be one of the first ones to look at that and deploy it when the time is right,” he assured.
Commenting on the recently proposed Subang Airport Regeneration Plan, Teo said it was a critical step to establish city airport operations, which might take time for the redevelopment to complete.
“We have already submitted a letter to the Transport Ministry to state our intent to be part of the plan and our target passengers would be geared towards small and medium enterprises as well as corporates based on the market positioning for the regeneration plan,” he said. – Bernama, April 3, 2023
