MASwings Close Six Routes, Make Way For Commercial Airlines

MASwings will cease operations for six routes in Sabah and Sarawak by next year to make way for commercial airlines, according to Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai during the Budget 2018 debate on November 8.

The six routes are Kota Kinabalu-Sandakan, Kota Kinabalu-Tawau, Kota Kinabalu-Miri, Kuching-Miri, Kuching-Kota Kinabalu and Kuching-Sibu.

The routes were chosen after a study by the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) was done on rural air services (RAS) and concluded that these routes had a high load factor up to 86{3ab9abdb116d77e110cf6766d5c5f310d2d72e0dd55573fcd30062e2b31ea297}, which promises profitability for commercial airlines.