Datuk Lee Kim Shin
MIRI (Jan 7): There will be no more AirAsia flights from Johor Bahru to Sibu starting this Sunday (Jan 10) when the new schedule of approved flights takes effect on Jan 9, said state Transport Minister Datuk Lee Kim Shin.
Lee said the last flight from Johor Bahru to Sibu will be on Jan 9 and there will be no more flight from Johor Bahru to Sibu until further notice.
He added that the new flight schedule for Sibu and Miri will take effect on that day.
Lee said his ministry had written to MAS, AirAsia and MASwings on Jan 5 on the approved flights after the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) agreed to the requests for flight reduction received from the Sibu and Miri Division Disaster Management Committees and taking into consideration the limited number of hotel rooms available for quarantine purposes and the rising number of covid-19 cases in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah.
According the new schedule approved by SDMC, there will be only two approved flights weekly from Kuala Lumpur to Sibu which will be departing at 11am on Saturday (AirAsia ) and Wednesday (MAS).
As for Miri, there will be a total of 11 arrivals weekly, with two flights for MAS and four for AirAsia from Kuala Lumpur. There will also be two flights each from Kota Kinabalu by AirAsia and MASwings and two from Labuan by MASwings.
AirAsia’s 5.30pm flights from Kuala Lumpur to Miri will be on every Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while MAS will fly at 12.30pm on Sunday and Thursday.
As for for the Kota Kinabalu to Miri route, AirAsia will have flights on every Tuesday and Friday at 10.30am, while the single flight from Johor Bahru will be at 6pm on Tuesday.
MASwings will pick up passengers from Labuan to Miri on Monday and Thursday at 9am.
Lee said the latest information on flight schedule approved by SDMC has been released to the public through the social media in advance so that the public are fully aware of the changes in flight schedule for their better travel plan during this challenging period of Covid-19 pandemic in the state.
Lee said in planning the overall flight schedule, each airline is given a different flight timing in order to assist the airline to have better passenger load for their flight.
“I would like to remind all airlines to only sell flight tickets according to the flight schedule approved by SDMC. This is important to provide reliable flight services to the public in the State,” he said.
He advised the public to book or purchase flight tickets based on the SDMC latest approved flight schedule.
Meanwhile, Lee also reminded airlines against cancelling any SDMC-approved flight at the last minute to avoid causing unnecessary problem to the public.