KUCHING, April 29: Sarawak has reinstated more than 90 per cent of its flight frequency during the pre-pandemic stage, said Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
The Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts said this include new added routes such as the Penang to Kuching route and Singapore to Miri route.
“This is certainly one of many milestones to come for Sarawak’s tourism sector as we embrace the transition to endemicity.
“I believe that the resumption of international flights comes at the right time for both tourists and locals in Sarawak, who have been excitedly anticipating and planning their travels,” he said during a press conference held during AirAsia welcoming flight held at the VIP Terminal of the Kuching International Airport, today.
Karim noted that another positive development for tourism activities to resume normally is the relaxation of standard operating procedures (SOP) starting May 1 onwards, including the lifting of requirements of Covid-19 tests for pre-departure and arrivals, mask mandates for outdoors and MySejahtera check-ins announced by the Health Ministry.
Apart from that, he said Sarawak has also increased its domestic flight frequency from 562 flights to 615 flights as of April 7.
According to him, visitors from West Malaysia can take direct flights to Sarawak’s three gateways, namely Kuching (Southern Region), Miri (Northern Region) and Sibu (Central Region), while for visitors wanting to fly directly to the southern region, they can take direct flights from Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Ipoh, Johor Bahru,Kota Kinabalu, Langkawi and Kota Bahru to Kuching.
“For the northern region, visitors can fly directly from Kuala Lumpur and Johor to Miri. Meanwhile, for those who are interested to visit the central region can take direct flights from Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and Penang to Sibu.
“We foresee that there will be many more to come in the near future,” he said.
Meanwhile, Karim said he is extremely pleased to learn that the flight from Singapore today is a full load with 180 passengers.
He said this only reinforces how treasured and closely connected our beloved city of Kuching is with Singapore.
“We would like to thank the AirAsia team for its undeterred efforts to make this possible again,” he added. — DayakDaily
