KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 10): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said low-cost carrier AirAsia Bhd cannot shift its entire operations to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) from klia2, as the former is almost at full capacity.

MAHB managing director Datuk Badlisham Ghazali said AirAsia had brought up the issue during a recent scheduled meeting.

He said the matter was only discussed briefly, adding AirAsia did not make clear as to what exactly the carrier wanted.

"We had a discussion with AirAsia a few days ago during a meeting on airport efficiency, and AirAsia had also brought up their request to consider moving to the other terminal (KLIA), just like other carriers such as Malaysia Airlines Bhd and Malindo Airways Sdn Bhd previously.

"We are currently studying this, to find out what exactly they want and then we will respond. It's just a matter of availability and capacity at the terminal," he told a press conference today. 

He said KLIA is operating almost at full capacity as MAHB has been aggressively roping in new airlines, as well as increasing the frequency of existing carriers which depends on available slots.

"If they are interested to come to KLIA, we welcome them, but they can only take the non-peak period slots, as the peak slots are almost full.

"We can only give them what free capacity that we have. I can't boot out an airline which has the peak slots, it will be very difficult — next to impossible. If they want more than what we can offer, then the answer will be no," said Badlisham.

He added that MAHB will "not take too long" to deliberate over the issue, adding that his team is working on it now.