FIREFLY Airlines is seeking Putrajaya’s intervention in regaining the airline’s landing slot at Singapore’s Changi International Airport, as an airspace dispute between the two governments threatens to deepen.

The short-haul arm of national carrier Malaysia Airlines has suffered a major loss of revenue from the suspension of its flights into Singapore from December 1, after it failed to obtain aviation approvals to land in Singapore’s Seletar Airport.

At the same time, the airline was informed that its landing spot in Changi Airport, where it was until then flying in from Subang Jaya, Kuantan and Ipoh, had been sold to another airline.

Firefly Airline chief executive officer Ignatius Ong said the company is appealing to Putrajaya to step in to try to reclaim its Changi landing rights until the issue with Seletar is resolved.

“We are urging the Malaysia government to assist, since this is (government-to-government) now,” Ong told The Malaysian Insight.

He declined to say if Putrajaya has responded to the airline’s appeal.

Firefly was to be the first commercial airline to commence operations on December 1 at the new Seletar terminal, which is meant for turbo-prop aircraft and has a capacity for 700,000 passengers yearly.

Firefly was the only airline operating turboprop flights between Changi Airport and Subang, Ipoh as well as Kuantan. The airline was running 20 flights daily to Changi.

Ong, who had earlier said almost 13,000 passengers were affected by the suspension, said about half of all these had taken up Firefly’s offer to transfer to Malaysia Airlines flights, departing from  Kuala Lumpur International Airport, to Singpore..

The rest were refunded.

Ong declined to reveal the cost in refunds, but said that almost all of the tickets for flights from Ipoh and Kuantan to Changi were refunded as Malaysia Airlines did not fly those routes.

The indefinite delay in issuance of Firefly’s landing rights at Seletar stems from Malaysia’s objection to new flight procedures being proposed for the airport, namely the broadcasting of the Instrument Landing System (ILS).

Loke has said the ILS infringes on Malaysia’s sovereignty, while Singapore insists that under current arrangements agreed upon by both countries, the republic is responsible for putting in place the flight procedures in the delegated airspace, which include those going into and out of all airports in Singapore.

While acknowledging that the airspace in southern Johor has been “delegated” to Singapore since 1974 for the purpose of providing air traffic control services, Loke told parliament on Monday he has informed Singapore on November 29 that Malaysia wishes now to “reclaim its sovereign airspace in phases”. – December 6, 2018.