KUALA LUMPUR: The Eleventh Malaysia Plan (11MP) will focus on greater utilisation of existing transport infrastructure and facilities, with greater emphasis on better delivery, quality of services and capacity improvement.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar said these included replacing the National Control Centre in Subang with a new Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control Centre to improve aircraft movement capacity over the aerospace.
“In addition, the communication, navigation and surveillance as well as air traffic management systems will also be upgraded,” he said at the signing ceremony of a collaboration agreement between AirAsia Bhd and Destini Aviation Sdn Bhd.
Abdul Wahid said Malaysia was expected to achieve more than 90 million air passengers carried this year, surpassing last year’s record of 85.1 million.
“To cater for the expected increase in business and tourist travellers, the airports, specifically the main international gateways, will be upgraded,” he added.
He said the 11MP also sought to transform the aviation’s maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sector by raising the quality of human capital to overcome the shortage of specialised talents which might hamper the sector’s growth.
“This will be achieved by having a greater partnership between industry and learning institutions, to fulfill the industry’s requirements and ensure talents produced have the necessary industry exposure,” he said.
He added that a structured industry internship for vocational and tertiary students for specific courses would be established to create a pool of qualified workforce while the current courses would be enhanced to emphasis soft skill capabilities.
Last year, the aerospace industry, consisting of 159 companies, employed 19,500 workers, and generated a revenue of RM11.8 billion.
The agreement between AirAsia and Destini Aviation would set the track for the two companies to start the final negotiations and implementation plan for engineering outsourcing.
The agreement covers key initiatives for strategic outsourcing namely technical handling, component MRO and hangar-based MRO. — Bernama