Thursday, July 06, 2006

Not MAS’ decision to drop routes

KUCHING: Malaysia Airlines (MAS) never had the intention of abandoning domestic non-trunk routes, including rural air services, its managing director Idris Jala said.

He said it was the Government that decided to restructure the domestic aviation sector by having two national carriers.

“It is not the intention of MAS to abandon the non-trunk routes. In our business turnaround plan, we offered to continue flying all these routes.

“If the Government allowed us to fly the non-trunk routes, we would be happy to do so,” he said.

Speaking at a press conference here, Idris added that MAS respected the Government’s decision on dividing the domestic sector into trunk and non-trunk routes and was working with the Government to arrive at a workable solution.

He also said the arrangement of MAS flying trunk routes and AirAsia flying non-trunk routes would work as long as both airlines maintained connectivity.

“As long as AirAsia can provide seamless transfers between trunk and non-trunk routes, there would be no inconvenience for passengers,” he said.

From Aug 1, MAS will only fly the 19 domestic trunk routes while the 99 non-trunk routes will be flown by AirAsia.

Earlier, Idris met Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud to brief him on the airline’s business turnaround plan.

Source: The Star

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