The Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) has reallocated four slot pairs at Kuala Lumpur Subang that were initially awarded to SKS Airways (KI, Johor Bahru).
As initially notified by Singapore-based aviation analyst and consultant Brendan Sobie on LinkedIn, Batik Air Malaysia, Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, and Firefly each picked up a slot pair to operate on the Subang-Singapore Changi city pair.
SKS Airways had hoped to use Subang as a hub for E190-E2 operations after inking a deal with Embraer and Azorra for ten of the type at the 2023 Langkawi Air Show. Soon afterwards, financial issues at the DHC-6-300 operator forced it to axe its existing scheduled turboprop services.
Nonetheless, SKS pushed on with its plan to induct the Embraers and applied for around 40 daily slot pairs at Kuala Lumpur's recently redeveloped Subang airport. MAVCOM granted it four. SKS then cancelled its E190 plans, saying it needed more slots at the airport to make jet operations viable. More recently, the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) suspended SKS's air operator's certificate. MAVCOM reallocated the four slot pairs because SKS failed to meet its usage requirements.
According to ch-aviation PRO airports data, four passenger carriers, AirAsia, Batik Air Malaysia, Firefly, and Berjaya Air, operate scheduled services in and out of Subang. None presently fly to Singapore Changi, although Firefly does operate up to five ATR72-600 operated roundtrips per day between Subang and Singapore Seletar. However, there are 269 weekly scheduled one-way flights between Changi and Kuala Lumpur International - an average of over 38 flights per day.
ch-aviation approached the four airlines allocated the slots for comment on whether they plan to start flying between Subang and Singapore.
