Tiny airport in Malaysia’s historic state Melaka hopeful ahead of Scoot’s arrival

MELAKA – Dimmed lights, shuttered shops and a deserted public carpark greet visitors at the Melaka International Airport, giving the impression that the 72-year-old airport has been sorely underutilised since the last scheduled commercial flight ended in 2023.

Among Malaysia’s 13 states, only Perlis and Negeri Sembilan do not have commercial airports. While Melaka does have a commercial airport, its proximity to Malaysia’s main gateway Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) has held back its runway success.

Airport officials are hoping that this will change from Oct 23 when Scoot – the low-cost arm of national carrier Singapore Airlines – begins

offering five return flights a week

from Changi Airport.

The airport in Batu Berendam is located about 10km from Melaka city, which is classified as a Unesco World Heritage city, and 135km by road from KLIA.

Melaka airport currently serves private jets only, with 39 duty staff each day, in addition to officers from immigration, Customs, quarantine and inspection services, a senior airport official said.

To conserve energy, an airport representative had turned off most of the terminal’s lights after six private jet passengers from Subang airport disembarked just 10 minutes before The Straits Times’ visit on Aug 13.

The senior airport operations representative said Melaka airport is operationally ready to take up new commercial flights in the coming months. He declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to media.

ST was also informed that daily tests and inspections are conducted to sustain ongoing operations and maintain safety levels of the airport and its equipment.

“Currently, there aren’t many passengers. Hopefully, with the arrival of Scoot’s flights in October, more people will be on board,” shuttle bus driver Mohd Ikmal Haizan said.

One-way economy class fares on Scoot start from $69, for a 55-minute flight from Singapore to Melaka covering a distance of 240km.

Outside the airport is the white-dotted pink bus that plies the route to the Melaka Sentral bus terminal, a 30-minute ride that costs RM2.60 (80 Singapore cents). The daily shuttle runs every hour from 6am to 9pm. From the bus terminal, passengers must take another bus to the downtown city centre, where the main hotels and tourist attractions are sited.

More details about bus connectivity for visitor arrivals will be made known at a later date, tourism officials said. Private car e-hailing services such as Grab and Maxim are also available for the 15-minute ride from the airport to the city centre for about RM13 to RM15.

While welcoming the new Scoot flights as a boon to local tourism and businesses, Kota Melaka MP Khoo Poay Tiong said the sustainability of the new route is crucial.

“If Scoot’s flight is carrying travellers who have subscribed to a tour package that includes Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, there is a sustainable market for the route. However, a direct Melaka-Singapore route might struggle to attract enough tourists,” Mr Khoo said.

On the plus side, Melaka airport has the growing northern Johor cities such as Muar, Tangkak and Segamat as additional catchment areas.

On the other hand, it also has to contend with another competitor apart from KLIA: the Senai International Airport in Johor Bahru, which is about 200km to the south of Melaka.

At maximum capacity, there would be 1,120 passengers a week from Scoot’s scheduled flights to and from Melaka. Scoot will use the 112-seater Embraer aircraft for the Singapore-Melaka route.

Tickets for the new route have been on sale since the announcement on Aug 6. Scoot said demand has been “encouraging and within expectations”.

Scoot told ST in an e-mail that its decision to schedule weekly flights to Melaka was based on its review of market demand and potential.

“The introduction of the E190-E2 aircraft to our fleet unlocks new opportunities for us to fly to underserved cities in the region, such as Melaka.

“This enables us to provide more travel options and convenience to travellers between Melaka, Singapore and beyond, enhancing connectivity, tourism and trade,” it said.

In 2023, Melaka airport recorded 23,489 passengers, or only 4.7 per cent of its design capacity of 500,000 users a year.

This compares with the 62.9 per cent utilisation of KLIA terminals 1 and 2 for the same period, according to Malaysia Airports Holdings, which manages most of the country’s airport terminals. The two KLIA terminals can handle 75 million passengers a year.

Senai International Airport, operated by private company MMC Corp, enjoyed a 60.2 per cent utilisation rate of its five million passenger capacity in 2023.

Melaka’s low airport utilisation rate is pegged to the low demand for commercial flights there, Melaka’s executive councillor for transport, Datuk Hameed Mytheen Kunju Basheer, told local tabloid Kosmo.

The last scheduled commercial flight to Melaka from Pekanbaru city, Sumatra, by Indonesia’s Wings Air, was in September 2023.

Scoot’s arrival coincides with Visit Melaka Year 2024, with the state government actively pushing to attract up to 18.7 million tourists to the historic state that had been colonised by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, in addition to the Japanese occupation during World War II.

China’s Ming Dynasty admiral Zheng He was believed to have visited Melaka at least five times in the 1400s.

Today, Chinese actress Fan Bingbing is a popular

tourism ambassador for Melaka,

wooing mainland Chinese holidaymakers with her star power.

As at July 2024, Melaka Chief Minister Ab Rauf Yusoh said the south-western state had drawn 8.7 million tourists – exceeding the 8.63 million visitors who flocked to Melaka in all of 2023. Scoot’s flights to the state will further boost visitor numbers from abroad, he added.

“Foreign tourists are welcome to visit Melaka with the new connectivity via Singapore with five weekly flights,” he told local media on Aug 9.

For civil engineer Oscar Ow, who used to work in Singapore but has since moved back to his hometown of Melaka, the new Scoot route makes sense as it is a viable option for residents of both cities travelling back and forth for work and to visit family and friends.

“Driving from Singapore to Melaka can take five to six hours, inclusive of land border clearance,” he noted.

A fruit-juice stallholder beside the famous 17th century red Dutch colonial building Stadthuys, who gave his name only as Mr Wong, said many Singaporean tourists will visit the historic city during weekends.

“It really depends on Singaporeans’ choice to take a car or plane to come in... But my business is booming (anyway) due to the influx of China tourists,” he said, while busily preparing watermelon juice for his customers.