Malaysia Airlines Launches Direct Flights for Kota Kinabalu - Singapore Route

Kota Kinabalu, 28 August 2022: Malaysia Airlines marked another milestone in its network expansion plan by introducing a new direct flight between Kota Kinabalu and Singapore which commencedoperations on 27 August 2022. The inaugural flight was commemorated with a welcome ceremony for passengers who arrived at Kota Kinabalu International Airport (BKI) at 12:25pm local time via flight MH648 from Changi International Airport (SIN).

Passengers were welcomed with a water cannon salute upon arrival at BKI and received goodies to remember the special occasion, distributed by representativesfrom Malaysia Airlines Berhad, Tourism Malaysia, Sabah Tourism Board, and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad.

Group Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia Aviation Group, Captain Izham Ismail said, “We are delighted to expand our connectivity to Singapore as many of our passengers opt for this route for business and leisure travel. This will further boost connectivity and flexibility for passengers bound to Singapore, as the airline also offers direct flights to the country via our main hub of Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Kuching. With this new service, passengers from Singapore can seamlessly connect to the Land Below the Wind to discover the scenic attractions of Sabah and even Fly Malaysia to surroundingstates from BKI via sister airlines Firefly and MASwings.

We look forward to further expanding our growth, introducing new strategic routes and increasing our capacity to achieve more than 70% of our pre-COVID-19 capacity by year-end.”

Puan Noredah Othman, Chief Executive Officer of Sabah Tourism Board said, “Sabah Tourism Board will continue to promote Sabah as a preferred holiday destination to Singaporeans and also to use the popular Singapore hub as a transit point for long haul market travellers to reach Sabah. Since the reopening of the SIN-BKI route in April, we have recorded an upward trend with 1,248 arrivals in May and 3,051 arrivals in June. With the inclusion of Malaysia Airlines, we are confident that this trend will continue.”

The airline will operate the direct flightsthree times weekly on Monday, Thursday and Saturday which will depart from BKI-SIN via MH647 at 07:00am and depart SIN-BKI via MH648 at 10:00am. The flights will be operated by B737-800 aircraft, equipped with 160 seats, comprising 16 seats in Business Classand 144 seats in Economy Class.