PUTRAJAYA: The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) will need to review all of its current fees and charges, including overflight charges, to increase its revenue and be financially independent, said Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook.
He said the current overflight charges were low and have not been reviewed since 2006.
“One of the major source of revenue for any civil aviation authority in the world is the overflight charges.
“Airlines using our airspace have to pay air navigation flight charges.
“So we are looking at this as a source of revenue,” Loke told a media conference here yesterday.
He said this was one of the corrective measures proposed following the United States’ Federal Aviation Administration’s move to downgrade CAAM’s listing to Category 2 last week.
“Reviewing the overflight charges which will potentially increase CAAM’s revenue will help us ratify issues raised by FAA, as one of the issues raised by them is that we are not paying our inspectors sufficiently,” he said.
Loke said CAAM is currently operating on a RM350 million budget and has an annual revenue of about RM120 million.
He said CAAM needed to increase its revenue, as one of FAA’s findings was that Malaysia’s remuneration packages were not attractive enough to attract and retain aviation talents.
Loke said this was because CAAM was dependent on government fund and therefore the salary schemes were similar to the civil service salary scale.
“Although CAAM was corporatised last year, it is still not fully financially independent,” he said.
Loke said the government would give notice to relevant airlines, both domestic and international, on the increased ANFC charges soon, adding that details on the increased cost and charges would be provided in a press conference next month. — Bernama