Transportation Minister, Ir. Dr. Wee Ka Siong has announced that Malaysia Airlines will be resuming flights between Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, and Miri starting this week. The national carrier will also be making sure that these flights will be connected to Bintulu and Sibu by MASwings.
According to the minister, the Ministry of Transportation didn’t direct any of the Malaysian air carriers to stop their flights from West Malaysia to East Malaysia. However, they themselves were forced to halt their operations due to significant reduction of passengers which is the natural consequences of the Movement Control Order (MCO).
However, this doesn’t mean that all flights between these cities will be resumed as normal though. The announcement stated that there will only be 1 return flights per week between KL to Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, and Miri. The announcement didn’t include the frequency for the said MASwings connecting flights though.
However, Ir. Dr. Wee did point out that Malaysia Airlines will add more flights to Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, and Miri if there are more requests. The company is willing to do the same for the MASwings flights mentioned above as well.
In general, this announcement was the response to the remark made by Sarawak’s State Tourism, Arts, and Culture Minister, Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah that Sarawak Disaster Managment Committee that the flights between Peninsula Malaysia and the state is necessary for urgent travel needs.
Additionally, he also pointed out that flight cancellations could lead to the increase of prices for goods in Sarawak although Ir. Dr. Wee has responded in the same announcement that Malaysia Airlines’ cargo flights between KL, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, and Labuan are still operating three times a week.
Despite this news, we would like to urge you not to travel between both sides of the country if not necessary and continue to adhere to MCO directive. We are still nowhere close to flattening the COVID-19 infection curve which we can only do so by reducing our movements outside of our location as much as possible.
(Image: MASwings.)
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