No plans to impose ceiling price for flight tickets, citing potential negative impact on capacity, fare costs

KUALA LUMPUR: The government has no plans to impose a ceiling price for flight tickets as it will only reduce flight capacity and drive up fare costs.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook said the setting of a ceiling price could also lead to higher ticket prices during non-peak hours.

"This has been mentioned many times before but the government has no intention of setting a ceiling price for flight tickets as it will only cause airlines to lose motivation and they might reduce their flight capacity.

"(And) if we set a ceiling price, lower ticket price during non-peak hours might be increased and become more expensive," he said during his ministry's winding-up session for the 2024 Supply Bill at the committee level in Dewan Rakyat, today.

Following this, Loke said several interventions had been taken by the ministry to ensure flight tickets remained at an affordable price, including encouraging local airline companies to operate until midnight during festive seasons with fixed fares.

He added that the ministry would also ensure that domestic airlines increased their flight capacity until the wee hours of the night during festive seasons.

"At the same time, we (the government) will also continue to purchase unsold seats in bulk and in return, the seats will be sold at a cheaper price, as we did during the previous Gawai festival.

"This is some of the intervention that we are doing to assist the people, especially for those who need to return to Sabah and Sarawak."

Meanwhile, on flight ticket subsidies for students, Loke today revealed that the ministry did not receive any additional allocation to cover flight subsidies for students.

The ministry, however, utilised the balance of the allocation it received to give RM300 vouchers for students to purchase flight tickets.

"The budget does not have an allocation (for the flight ticket subsidies for students) and this is why we implemented an initiative to provide RM300 vouchers for students to buy tickets.

"(And) this initiative is funded through the balance of the allocation we receive and we use whatever balance we have to channel and help university students.

"This is particularly important to help students from Sabah and Sarawak studying in Peninsula to return to their hometown, as well as helping students from Peninsula who are studying in Sabah and Sarawak."

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