“Minister Liow Tiong Lai will make a final decision. It is just a proposal. Not cast in stone,” said DCA director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman today.
The new proposed charges were supposed to start this Friday, he added.
He said DCA had to revise the charges to generate enough money for their operating costs, to have a reasonable return on assets and to upgrade equipment to new technology to serve the industry better.
At present, the department spends RM250 million a year but the income it gets is only RM50 million.
“Whatever service we render , we want it to be paid for. We need to review this because the last review was in 1974 – 40 years ago. We need to hike the fees to be sustainable and carry out our projects.”
Azharuddin pointed out that the charges by aviation authorities in Thailand, Hong Kong and Vietnam were higher.
AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes had lamented DCA’s lack of consultation with stakeholders.
To this, Azharuddin said: “The charges are a bit sensitive. We did call last week. We have spoken to them. We are listening to them.”
Furthermore, he said, 30 years ago, the country’s economy was good and the equipment used by the airline industry was not as sophisticated as now.
“Now we need better equipment to be able to service better or we will be left behind.
“We wanted to hike charges now as we feel the time is right. We don’t need the government to sponsor everything. We want a ‘user pay concept’, that is whoever uses pays.”
Asked if the move might trigger a hike in air fares, he said: “They (the airlines) should know the distance their flights travel and how often they fly. It is not for us to calculate. We don’t know.”
At present, about 1,100 flights land and fly out of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Azharuddin said DCA was engaged in a number of projects, among them to build a new control operations centre at KLIA by 2019.
“We have to replace the radar and radio communication system that is used to navigate aircraft in our air zone. DCA also needs flight simulators.”