PETALING JAYA: Most of the budget flights to Sabah over the last few days were almost full, say airlines.
Batik Air, which operates flights to Kota Kinabalu from KLIA and Subang said the overall average capacity was above 85%.
Marketing head Bavani Veeriah said the last flight yesterday at 7pm saw a 95.7% load factor.
“The 7.05am flight to Kota Kinabalu was at 92%, the 8am one from Subang was at 80.2%, the 1.30pm from KLIA was at 87%, the 2.30pm was at 78.3%,” said Bavani.
She also said the fixed fare by Batik Air in conjunction with the Sabah polling day encouraged many to snap up tickets.
AirAsia’s flights out of KLIA2 were also almost full but there were still some seats available as at 6pm yesterday, said a source.
A check on the Malaysia Airlines website yesterday showed that there were still seats available from KLIA to Kota Kinabalu for last night’s flights.
However, only one or two seats were available. Return flights costs between RM569 and RM869 for economy class on these flights.
Airline insiders said it was normal to see heavy passenger traffic during weekends.
“Also, it is the salary period and Sabahans from the Klang Valley would have planned to return home this weekend. The polling day is an added factor,” said the insider.
