"Malaysian airports reel under SARS attack"

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Airports reel under SARS attack
Malaysia - The Star


SEPANG: Airports in the country are reeling from the combined effects of the
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Iraq war, with total income
dropping by 60% in this month alone.

Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAB) chairman Tan Sri Basir Ismail said:
'This is a terribly bad time,' describing this as the 'worst period he had
ever faced' since joining the company some 11 years ago.

'The effects are very serious. Previously, where an airline used to fly to
our airports some three times a day, these flights have been reduced to just
one.

'Last week, there was a flight from Taipeh with only three passengers on
board. Flights have been cancelled by 40% and passenger volume has dipped by
30%,' he told reporters after witnessing the signing of the collective
agreement between MAB and its union at the Pan-Pacific Hotel at KL
International Airport here yesterday.

Basir also said the company, on the contrary, had charted a higher income in
the first two months of this year alone compared to the same period last
year.

Sales of duty-free goods among airport retail shops, he said, had also seen
a decrease of between 30% to 40%.

Malaysia Airports is 70% held by the government. It runs Malaysia's 37
airports and part owns an airport in Cambodia.

Basir said he hoped that with the recent lifting of restrictions on visitors
from Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan on social passes, the situation would
improve.

Asked if the situation was so dire that MAB might have to resort to
retrenchment or force its employees to take leave to cut down on operations
costs, Basir said he did not think it would come to that as 50% of its staff
were employed in airport security.

To a question if MAB would seek any special assistance from the Government
to ride out the crisis, Basir said that 'if we have to do it, we will. But
at present, we don't have to,' he added.


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