SANDAKAN: The frequent cancellation of flights to Sabah has made air travel to Kuala Lumpur more costly and inconvenient for Malaysians particularly those from Sabah’s east coast Sandakan.
“There has been an outcry recently as the non-availability, insufficient seats and cancellation of flights to Sabah have contributed to a lot of unnecessary cost increase for Malaysians wishing to travel to Kuala Lumpur from Sabah and vice versa,” said state Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Peter Pang.
Pang was also made to understand that tourist arrivals to Sabah was also affected and for the first time in many years, hotels were not enjoying the usual high occupancy during the recent Christmas festive holidays.
“Businessmen from Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia complained of having difficulties in getting seats, let alone family members visiting each other during the festive season.
Happy seniors: Peter Pang (centre) with wife Datin Cheang Poh Nie and others during the programme at the Sandakan Community Centre recently.
“I wonder if all this happened and will continue to happen because of the recent share swap between Malaysia Airlines and Air Asia leading to the restructuring of their organisation,” he said.
Pang said the restructuring was held with a view of profiting or so called cost-cutting, hence, the number of flights were reduced and cancelled.
“Breach of anti-competition behaviour, abuse of dominant position and profiteering through monopoly was illegal,’ he said, referring to the Competition Commission Act 2010 which was passed in Parliament and enforced Jan this year.
Pang, who is also Karamunting State Assemblyman, believed MPs from Sabah should highlight this issue to the Federal Government.
He said this to reporters after presenting ang pow and goodies to 1,238 senior citizens from his constituency at the Sandakan Community Centre in conjunction with Chinese New Year celebrations.