Malindo Air gets nod to fly to Jeddah

Malindo Air CEO Chandran Rama Muthy

PERTH: Malindo Air has received the approval from the Government to fly to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Chief executive officer Chandran Rama Muthy (pic) said the airline planned to start the Jeddah-Kuala Lumpur sector in 2016 but did not give a specific date when it would start the service.

“The route is important due to the high passenger-load factor,’’ he told Malaysian journalists at the launch of its Perth-Kuala Lumpur inaugural flight recently.

The 11 times weekly service started on Nov 19, using the narrow-body Boeing 737-900ER, with a seat capacity of 12 in Business Class and 168 in Economy Class from KL International Airport 2.

Chandran said the airline would be using a wide-body aircraft to ply the Jeddah-Kuala Lumpur route but declined to reveal whether it would be using a Boeing or an Airbus aircraft for the route.

“We want to tap on this segment as thousands of Muslims from Malaysia perform the umrah in Mecca annually,’’ he said.

Official statistics showed between 60,000 and 100,000 Malaysian Muslims performed their umrah there yearly.

On the other hand, Malaysia was also popular with Saudi tourists especially during summer months and they spend an average of RM8,000 per person per trip.

Separately, Chandran said plans were already in the pipeline to fly to other Australian cities after Perth namely to Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

He said the Perth-Kuala Lumpur received encouraging response from air passengers with forward bookings until next year.

Chandran said the company would start its Colombo-Kuala Lumpur sector next month, and in 2016 to Hong Kong, cities in southern China and few destinations in Thailand.

“We have carried about four million passengers since we took to skies in 2013, we are confident our reaching the six million mark and 2016 is going to be a profitable year for us,’’ he said.

Chandran said Malindo Air would focus on regional expansion, especially to China, India and Asean markets as the Malaysian domestic market was already saturated.

The airline currently operates 800 flights weekly, using 11 ATR72-600 and 16 Boeing 737NG to Malaysia, Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand and Singapore.