The government today vowed to step up its ambitious campaign to become the region's aviation gateway to compete with neighbouring Singapore by offering "more attractive" deals.

"We are still working towards that goal of becoming (the aviation hub) and are constantly looking for new ways to be more attractive to carriers," Transport Minister Ling Liong Sik told AFP .

Ling said incentives such as waived parking and landing charges had succeeded in wooing carriers to increase their flights to the under utilised Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

Earlier, Ling said the Lauda Air-Austrian Airlines Group had increased its flights to Malaysia from six to seven weekly, following the lead of other airlines such as Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific and Dubai's Emirates.

Ling said the government was looking keenly into other options and incentives to further boost its standing as a regional hub.

"We are open to suggestions, but we will continue to give more attractive offers," he said.

But Ling said no definite plans had been decided.

Though it was built to handle as many as 25 million passengers a year, only 14.6 million people passed through KLIA last year.

Parking fees

The government had announced earlier this month that new flights launched by carriers to KLIA would not have to pay parking and landing fees for the next five years.

Ling said the government had received "encouraging signs" that KLIA was attracting increased interest from foreign carriers as a result of its aggressive campaign.

"We will continue to study every option to keep competitive, other airports may be doing things we have not thought of," said Ling.

Malaysia had announced in January it was set to challenge Singapore's position as one of the region's main container ports with the expansion of the Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Johor.

"It's the same with our ports, the offers and incentives we give are very competitive, and they (carriers) will naturally choose to come to us."

Malaysia Airports, which manages and operates 37 airports in the country, has said it will spend RM10 million in 2002 to promote KLIA.