Suddenly, another round of opposition against carving out Subang Airport

There was no wind, no storm when suddenly opposition to the sales of Subang Airport was heard coming from Chairman of MAHB, union and public few months back.

It turned out Tan Sri Desmond Lim of Pavilion fame submitted a proposal via WCT Berhad to carve out Subang Airport for high end property development guised as a mini Aeropolis.

Again no wind, no storm and it is the airport and MTUC unions repeating their opposition to the plan in a video press conference on Monday. 

Their statement was given wide coverage in the media. Among others, media reporting the "PC" was The Mole, FMT, MR, and Getaran.

The statement issued in their "PC":

The union call received support from political parties; both from ruling coalition and opposition.

UMNO Deputy President, Dato Mohamed Hasan called on government to give priority on solving the pandemic than selling government asset. 

FT UMNO Youth Chief, Mohamad Nizham Abdullah Hamidi echoed the same call and questioned the motivation favouring private developers to make multibillion profits.

PKR also expressed opposition in, which Rocky Bru cited as UMNO and PKR having common stand on this issue. Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh questioned why government is still considering WCT proposal. 

Hopefully certain faction do not take advantage of this issue of national interest to continue their attack on their party President.

PSM and Muda also expressed their opposition. 

WCT submitted a proposal sometime in March. 

Words heard that MAHB and MAS submitted a joint memorandum against the plan citing the point to point airport plan will result in cannibalising both MAHB and MAS.

It is as if the government not learned from the experiance of allowing too much room for AirAsia, which turned Malaysian airline industry into low yield destination, inhibited growth, downside risk, and lost national agenda to commercialism.

Both the airport operations of Skypark Terminal of Subang and Senai Airport not run by MAHB are not profitable. 

WCT with their private jet airport idea at the Skyterminal was not workable. Passengers enter or exit the jets directly from or into their private vehicle. 

There is no ancillary businesses to be generated and in the end, no aeropolis too. 

Apparently the KSU Dato Isham Ishak had written on behalf of MOT to MOF to expressed reservations to the plan. 

In the halls of PWTC, it is heard both MOT Dato Seri Wee Ka Siong and MAHB Chairman Dato Dr Zambery Kadeer explicitly expressed their concern against the idea to MOF Tengku Zafrol.

It is suspected that Tengku Zafrol is for the carving out idea. Among the reasons cited are MAHB losses occured during the pandemic, and a repeat of the same failed Air Asia excuses for competition and free market.

It is claimed MAHB expect money from government, but in actual fact, they had the money and still have the means to develop Subang. However, the operating agreement does not allow. 

Rocky Bru has a good bite on the justifications of WCT proposal, financial contribution of MAHB, economic spillover generated by the KLIA-LTSAAS ecosystem similar to Bangkok and Singapore, and national security aspect.

Private sector, especially high end property developer do not have sufficient understanding of aerospace industry. They will not be able to attract the FDI that MAHB managed to do to attain the 2nd most prefered base for MRO in Asia.

The mini aeropolis proposal of WCT is a 1,300 acres land grab for a potential 10 years development and RM20 billion GDV. However, economic spillover of property play is limited and benefit tycoons.

There is already an aeropolis plan put together for Sepang. It is awaiting for the right condition and government commitment. 

MAHB have spent millions spent to do a thorough professional and international standard study to put together Subang Regeneration Plan. 

It was recently submitted to government and has the union backing.

The country must be able to generate economic activitities, employment, attract investment and growth for country on sustainable basis beyond next GE and IPO.

There is life to continue after Covid 19 pandemic is over. The neo-liberals in government positions need a plan with multiplying effect.