Published on: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 |
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is not reducing its flight frequencies to destinations affected by the tsunami tragedy as demand for those areas remained sufficient, its managing director Datuk Ahmad Fuaad Dahlan said here Tuesday.
"We have not reduced any flights and have sustained all frequencies even to Phuket and Sri Lanka," he told a press conference after handing over a RM200,000 cheque from the company and another RM11,000 cheque from MAS' employees to the National Tsunami Relief Fund here.
New Straits Times (M) Bhd marketing and corporate relations general manager Datuk Ahmad Talib received the cheque for the fund which is administered by the New Straits Times and Berita Harian. Also present was MAS sales distribution marketing senior general manager Datuk Abdul Rashid Khan. A total of 144,970 people perished in the Dec 26 incident, which was triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Indonesia. Of these, 94,081 died in Indonesia, 30,196 in Sri Lanka, 5,187 in Thailand and 74 in Malaysia.
"No cut back in those parts. So far there are no changes to the schedule," Fuaad said in reference to MAS's destinations to Penang, Langkawi, Sri Lanka, Phuket and Medan.
The national carrier flies twice daily from KL International Airport (KLIA) to Medan and once a day from Penang to Medan. It also operates two flights daily to Phuket and four times a week to Colombo. Abdul Rashid said that while the drop in demand was noticeable for MAS' flights to some of the affected-areas, especially Phuket, MAS had not seen significant reduction in passengers wanting to fly to Langkawi and Penang.
