KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 8 (AFP) – Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia said it will defer delivery of seven aircraft by four years to 2015 due to space constraints at its Kuala Lumpur terminal.

AirAsia agreed to order 175 Airbus A320 aircraft in 2005, with a delivery schedule running from December 2005 to October 2014, but deliveries have been put back several times due to its overcrowded budget terminal.

''With the above deferment, the delivery of 15 aircraft in 2011 shall be reduced to eight aircraft,'' AirAsia said in a statement to the Malaysian stock exchange.

The carrier said the purpose of scaling down the 2011 delivery was to enable AirAsia ''to optimize its fleet and avoid the costs associated with leaving idle or under-utilized aircraft due to infrastructural limitations.''

''No penalties are payable by AirAsia in revising the delivery schedule of the 2011 aircraft,'' the statement said.

The Malaysian government last year vetoed AirAsia's ambitious plan to build its own $460-million airport far from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

AirAsia had been hoping to improve standards and lower operational costs by abandoning the shabby and overcrowded low-cost terminal next to the main international airport.