Stansted airport may see a revival of flights to Kuala Lumpur if a late ownership bid by Malaysia’s airports operator is successful.
A report in the Sunday Telegraph indicates that Malaysia Airports Holdings, which owns Kuala Lumpur International Airport among 39 airports in the country, has entered the bidding process.
MAH’s interest comes despite the axing around 18 months ago of flights to Stansted by Malaysia’s Air Asia X, one of its key partners. The airline briefly moved services to Gatwick after being given a more favourable fees deal but quit the UK a few months later, blaming the punitive Air Passenger Duty.
Any deal is unlikely to see an immediate revival of Air Asia X services but could ease the way in the future if a deal could be done on landing fees.
MAH owns stakes in airports in the Maldives, Hyderabad, New Delhi and Istanbul’s Sabiha Goken airport, the Turkish city’s secondary hub, which is served from Stansted.
Stansted is up for sale because its owners Heathrow, previously known as the airports group BAA, has been told to offload it to break up its monopoly in the south east. Bringing in a new bidder will boost the competition among the original interested parties, which are thought to include Manchester Airport Group, financial investors TPG and HRL Morrison and Australian airports operator Macquarie.
The sale is likely early in 2013. Heathrow and Stansted airports declined to comment.
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