Firefly To Use JB Hub To Fly Regional Routes

23 May 2011 , By Bernama

Firefly will start flying to regional destinations this year from its southern hub in Johor Bahru (JB), commencing with the flights to two Indonesian cities.

Its managing director, Datuk Eddy Leong, said Firefly would commence operations to Surabaya and Bandung from August and to Bangkok in the fourth quarter of this year.

"These routes are already on sale and the load factor looks promising," he said in a statement in conjunction with the launch of its inaugural flight from JB to Kuching.

Firefly's FY816 took off at 7.30am from Senai International Airport with a load of 70 per cent and touched down at Kuching International Airport at 8.55am while its load factor on its return flight was 75 per cent.

He said additional domestic flights had also been scheduled between JB and Langkawi as well as JB and Penang in conjunction with the school holidays in the second quarter of this year.

"Johor is a significant part of Firefly's growth plan as our target market will now expand to mass passengers from the southern region, Singapore, Batam and transit passengers in Sabah and Sarawak," he said.

He said the southern hub routes would also increase accessibility for tourists and business travellers into the commercial development of Iskandar Malaysia.

To date, Firefly has flown 3.6 million passengers with a target to fly one million passengers from the southern hub by end-2012.