Budget airline’s southern hub flies to Kuching

Budget airline’s southern hub flies to Kuching

Budget airline Firefly commenced its inaugural flight from Senai International Airport to Kuching in Sarawak recently.

The twice-daily flight departs from Johor Bahru at 7.30am and 6.35pm respectively while the flights from Kuching to Johor Bahru are timed at 9.55am and 8.30pm.

The Johor Bahru-Kuching flight marks Firefly’s inaugural route from its southern hub.

From June 16, the airline will commence a twice daily return flight from Johor Bahru to Kota Kinabalu and both East Malaysian routes will operate using the Boeing 737-400 with a seating capacity of 162.

Firefly will go regional from its southern hub in August with flights to Surabaya and Bandung in Indonesia.

The company’s managing director Datuk Eddie Leong said tickets were already for sale and by the end of the year, the airline would commence flights from Johor Baru to Bangkok, Thailand.

“The introduction of Firefly’s services underline our commitment to develop Johor Bahru as our southern hub, offering Johoreans more travel choices and contribute significantly to the rapidly developing opportunities in commerce and tourism.

“Johor is a significant part of Firefly’s growth plan as our target market will now expand to mass passengers from the southern region, Singapore, Batam and transit passengers in East Malaysia,” he said.

Additional domestic flights have also been scheduled between Johor Bahru and Langkawi as well as Johor Bahru and Penang in conjunction with the school holidays in the second quarter of this year.

At Senai, flight FY816 took off at 7.30am with a 70% passenger load and touched down at Kuching International Airport at 8.55am.

The travel trade and media from Johor were among those onboard this inaugural flight.

They were greeted at the airport by children from Pertubuhan Kebajikan Anak-Anak Yatim Negeri Sarawak and Salvation Army Kuching Children’s Home.

Sarawak Tourism Board’s CEO Datuk Rashid Khan led the welcoming party and children who greeted the passengers.

“I am pleased to welcome passengers from Johor Bahru to Kuching.

“At the same time, I also look forward to travel with Sarawakians to Johor Bahru on Firefly’s return flight,” said Rashid.

To date, Firefly has flown 3.6 million passengers. From its southern hub, the airlines is targeting to fly one million passengers by the end of 2012.

~News courtesy of The Star~