KUCHING, Jan 4: The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has dissociated itself from an attempt by AirAsia to allow, and then cancel a last-minute flight from Kota Kinabalu to Sibu that was not in the schedule for approved flights.
The committee, through its secretariat, released an official statement today to notify the public that it has released to and communicated with all airlines on approved scheduled flights entering Sarawak through the Ministry of Transport on Dec 23.
It asserted that the flight schedule was arranged to allow for SDMC to prepare and allocate sufficient quarantine rooms for those arriving in Sarawak.
“It is unfortunate that AirAsia did not follow the approved flight schedule provided and had went ahead with the decision to allow the additional flight to enter Sarawak through Sibu from Kota Kinabalu (AK6090) on Jan 3.
“Therefore, SDMC would like to disassociate with the attempt made by AirAsia on the non-compliance scheduled flight that was cancelled. The committee seeks the cooperation of all airlines to comply with the approved scheduled flight issued by SDMC through MOT from time to time,” said SDMC in a statement today.
The recent public outburst on social media involved passengers expressing anger over the cancellation of AK6090 just half-an-hour before the departure time.
When AirAsia’s customer service was contacted for the reason of cancellation, the passengers were told that AirAsia only received the instructions from the government to call off the flight not long before the passengers as well.
This frustrated the passengers as many of them are Sarawakians who wished to return to their hometowns. — DayakDaily
