KUALA LUMPUR: Jet fuel prices will likely remain between US$178 and US$186 per barrel across 2027, but depending on the levels next year, the forecasts for the industry could remain elevated, says Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) president and group chief executive officer Captain Nasaruddin A Bakar.

According to him, as fuel prices surged 90% more than before the Middle East war, the airline company had increased fares between 20% and 30% in 2026.

“This can either be replicated through fuel surcharge or fare increases, but that’s to cushion the impact of fuel prices,” he said to reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) 70th Assembly of Presidents (AP70) here on Friday.

Nasaruddin said the airline was unable to recoup some of the elevated charges from the fare that passengers were paying.

“Usually, the margins would have been between 2% to 3%, but this year as oil prices surged, our margins were slightly less than 1%. I think every airline would have been impacted because of the fuel prices,” he explained.

Despite operating costs increasing, he added the airline offers dynamic pricing, based on supply and demand.

Nasaruddin said the strategy for now is to execute capacity with discipline – which means to ensure any destination the airline is flying into is able to deliver a positive performance.

As a national carrier, he pointed out, it was vital for the airline to ensure connectivity within and outside of the country.

“All of this put significant pressure on our finances, but we are still on track for our long-term business plan,” Nasaruddin noted.

Under MAG’s Long-Term Business Plan 3.0 (LTBP 3.0), the group is targeting a revenue of RM24.6bil by 2030.

MAG is also looking to raise operating profit margins to 9% by 2030, up from 0.9% in 2024.

Nasaruddin said MAG will be announcing its long-range widebody aircraft replacement plans next month.

He said delays would definitely impact the group’s business plans – while some of the delays were due to supply chain issues by its manufacturers.

“As an airline, we practice forward booking which means there are advanced sales, sometimes between three to six months because we are under the assumption that we have the aircraft. So if it gets delayed, it means we are not able to deliver the service and have to manage that by transferring to other aircrafts,” he said.

Nasaruddin said for now the impact is minimal, but should there be a huge capacity to cut, then it will impact earnings.

However, MAG’s top-line revenue had recorded an incremental year-on-year increase of 14% between 2024 and 2025.

The ground-handling business had grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 4% with more airlines using its services at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

“MAG has added four airline customers to the ground handling services this year,” he said.

Separately, Nasaruddin said there are no plans for MAG to absorb AirAsia Bhd’s market share nor its aircrafts.

He said he had wanted to clarify that there was no discussion on that.

Instead, he stressed that airport charges, including passenger service charges needed to be the same as all airlines use the same facilities with the same infrastructure.

“If one airline had to pay RM20 in passenger service charges, another airline using the same infrastructure should also pay RM20. Though, charges at KLIA 1 and KLIA 2 could be different because of different facilities,” he said.