Sarawak transport minister Datuk Lee Lim Shin announced that the state will now allow airlines to resume domestic flights at full capacity starting today on 10 June 2020. This includes travels between Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak, as well as interstate flights. He explained that the Sarawak State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) had approved the decision after taking various factors into consideration.
Although flights are given the green light to resume at full capacity, airline operators are instructed to strictly abide the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to ensure passenger safety at terminals and while inside aircrafts. Lee said that they are also required to officially apply to the SDMC to increase their flight frequency to Sarawak and within the state itself.
Additionally, the minister added that the decision to allow the resumption of flights is in line with the interest of accelerating domestic economic recovery. Airline operators were required to ground most of their aircraft, and had only been receiving little to no passenger load after the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on 18 March.
Lee also hopes that this would further help airlines to cope with the current situation and reduce flight fares to a reasonable and acceptable level for the public. Air travel from Peninsular Malaysia to Sarawak were charged at exorbitant prices prior to this with fares reaching above RM2,000, he added.
(Source: Bernama)
