Firefly (FY, Penang) has asked the Malaysian government to help it with regaining slots at Singapore Changi pending the resolution of an airspace conflict over Singapore Seletar, where the carrier eventually intends to relocate to, TODAY has reported.
The regional subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines ended its flights into Changi at the end of November as it planned to relocate to Seletar as of December 1. However, it has so far failed to obtain regulatory approval for services into Seletar due to the ongoing political spat between Malaysia and Singapore over landing patterns. As such, Firefly has not been operating to Singapore at all since December 1, which led to significant financial losses.
The carrier would like to temporarily restore its flights into Changi but was informed by the airport authorities that its slots have already been reallocated to other airlines.
Firefly did not say whether it had received any answer from the Malaysian government.
The carrier operated to Singapore 70x weekly in total out of Kuala Lumpur Subang, Ipoh, and Kuantan.
The dispute between Malaysia and Singapore relates to the ILS landing pattern at Seletar. Malaysia's Transport Minister Anthony Loke recently said that the flight path blocks development in Pasir Gudang, a Malaysian industrial town across the Johor Strait from Seletar. Because of that, the Malaysia government intends to seek to reclaim the delegated airspace over the southern part of the Johor province, which has been managed by Singapore since 1974.
Singapore said that the published ILS landing path at Seletar only formalises the already existing flight pattern and does not impose any new restrictions on the development of the Malaysian towns.
Seletar has not seen any scheduled services since 2010. It is currently used for general aviation, flight training, and charter operations. It also hosts maintenance bases and is home to a Rolls-Royce assembly plant. As a part of a plan to relieve congestion at Changi, the secondary airport got a new SGD80 million dollar (USD59.1 million) passenger terminal able to handle 700,000 passengers per annum. Firefly, which was the only turboprop operator at Changi until the end of November, was due to be the first and so far the only scheduled operator at Seletar.
