Sarawak Premier Abang Johari Openg has failed to meet his self-imposed end-of-December 2024 deadline to finalise the acquisition of MASwings (MY, Kota Kinabalu) from Malaysia Aviation Group. He told local outlets on December 30 that he now wanted to close the deal sometime in the first quarter of 2025, pending a third-party valuation of the assets.
The premier said an in-principle agreement was in place for the state government to acquire the regional carrier, but the parties have differing valuations and were not ready to sign a formal sale and purchase agreement yet.
"Only one thing remains, the value of the assets," Abang Johari told local outlets. "The state government has its own valuation and Malaysia Aviation Group also placed a certain value on those assets. We need to ask a third party to estimate the value of MASwings's assets. Once this process has completed, then the takeover process will be completed. But definitely next year [2025] in the first quarter."
Since 2023, the premier has been outspoken about his goal of having a Sarawak-based scheduled passenger carrier. At first, Abang Johari wanted to transform the local state-owned general aviation operator Hornbill Skyways into a scheduled carrier. The plan then changed to taking over MASwings, a regional Malaysia Airlines Group carrier with extensive operations in Sarawak.
For much of the past 18 months, talks between the Sarawak state government, the Malaysian federal government, MAG, and the Khazanah Nasional sovereign wealth fund, which owns MAG, have resulted in nothing besides vague expressions of support for the idea and missed deadlines.
The premier's plan is to shift MASwings away from its regional focus relying on ATR72-500s and DHC-6-400s and add jet aircraft for a pan-Asian expansion. He has recently spoken of flying as far afield as Frankfurt International.
