Malaysia Gets Two More Budget Airlines While the Existing One Pivots to Food and On-Demand Delivery

While AirAsia is still struggling to regain its footing and former glory, it is about to face even more competition as Malaysia’s civil aviation industry regulator has approved the establishment of two new airlines.

The first, MYAirline, is an ultra-low-cost carrier, which has been given conditional approval for an air service license, which means they can carry passengers and cargo in their planes just like Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia.

While it may seem a fool’s errand to start an airline business during a pandemic, now is when leasing rates are cheap and there are plenty of experienced but retrenched flight staff they can pick from for, ahem, cheaper. The Edge Malaysia reported that MYAirline has signed “to lease two Airbus A320s at cheap leasing rates” based on credible sources.

MYAirline is believed to be financially backed by Dato’ Goh Hwan Hua whose experience is in Accounting and Finance; he is joined on the Board of Directors by former director-general of civil aviation, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman; former Malaysia Airports Holdings COO, Abd Hamid Mohd Ali, and former AirAsia Head of Sales and Distribution, Teo Kheng Hock – so, they have experience in the leadership positions.

The other airline is SKS Airways, owned by SKS Group based in Johor. SKS’s first flight on 25 January will see one of their turboprop aircraft take off from Subang Airport and land in Pangkor island; SKS Airways will focus on similar routes between cities and island or coastal destinations.

Meanwhile, AirAsia, which recommenced international flight last October, has yet to recover from the drawn-out global travel restrictions. But Tony certainly has been busy. The cash-strapped carrier raised RM974.5 million from a rights issue and had signed an agreement to acquire local food delivery platform, Delivereat, under its digital logistics arm, Teleport. But with there being established players (read: Grab) in their new venture and new ones entering their old business with a clean slate, one wonders if AirAsia will make it out of the pandemic alive.