20th December 2019 is a very special date in the history of Malaysian aviation, as Senai International Airport celebrates its latest milestone of handling 4 million guests in a single year. The AirAsia Group wishes to congratulate Senai Airport Terminal Services Sdn Bhd (SATSSB) on reaching this momentous milestone. 

Riad Asmat, CEO of AirAsia Malaysia said, “Congratulations to SATSSB for handling over four million passengers this year. We are particularly proud to know that over 80% of the total number is contributed by AirAsia flights. 

AirAsia currently has 223 flights weekly operating to/from Senai, linking the state directly to ten other domestic cities, as well as Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and China. 

“The key behind this successful partnership is the importance placed on collaboration and teamwork as the way forward to improve operational efficiency. Derick Basir and his team is always there to engage and discuss with our team. The focus has always been on keeping customers at the heart of everything we do – physically and digitally, with both eventually merging to create a seamless journey from start to finish.” 

Hitting the 4 million mark also means that the airport has reached its maximum capacity and SATSSB will have to expand the terminal building. SATSSB announced a RM20 million expansion project, and the fact that AirAsia is actively engaged and consulted for this project shows that SATSSB is great partner who tries to better understand our low cost model in order to give our guests the best airport experience, apart from increasing efficiency and keeping costs low. 

The expansion project will include the extension of the existing arrival and departure halls towards the south of the existing terminal building. Key elements include the construction of four new departure and boarding gates, additional new seating area, covered walkway connecting to aircraft parking bays, installation of additional baggage handling system and installation of escalator and elevator to link the existing terminal building to the new area.

“We are pleased to provide our input to SATSSB and we appreciate the fact that our opinions were considered. The expansion is expected to increase the capacity of the airport to five million passengers per annum, which is an increased capacity of one million. With this, we look forward to exploring adding more flights or increasing frequency of existing flights to Johor Bahru”. 

We are happy to see our partners grow, because it will directly and indirectly contribute towards the industry as a whole. Not to mention the value it brings towards Malaysia’s Shared Prosperity Vision as well. 

FACES 

When AirAsia started our automation project in early 2018, SATSSB was the first to show their support, clearly leading the way in partnering with airlines to provide a better travelling experience for passengers. 

It is only with their support that AirAsia got our second entry into the Malaysia Book of Records in September 2018 as the ‘First Airline to Introduce Facial Recognition Technology in Malaysia’ for our FACES (Fast Airport Clearance Experience System). 

FACES allows our passengers to board their flight without having to present any travel documents as it uses biometric facial recognition to authenticate travellers. 

We are delighted to have a great airport partner like Senai International Airport who has been supportive of all our digitalisation efforts, and we look forward to grow Johor Bahru together especially with the news of expansion plans for the airport.”