KNEE JERK REACTION BY SABAH AIR

PKR Supreme Council Member cum PKR Sabah Secretary, Dr Roland Chia Ming Shen questioned the sudden announcement of Sabah AIR Aviation Sdn Bhd on their three phase plan to serve both domestic and regional routes to take over MAS suspension flights. It sounded like a knee jerk reaction as a result of the public outcry that caused this announcement to happen.

Why is the so called ‘authorities’ concern is taking such a long time to proceed with the application? Why is the Transport Ministry has not stepped in immediately to work on the transition plan before the MAS international flights were suspended to Kota Kinabalu last month?

We have a Sabahan who is a Deputy Minister of Transport. To add salt into injury, the Sabah State government has a stake in MAS through WHSSB- are they too sleeping in their job? Why these matters were not planned for a proper transition for Sabah AIR Aviation Sdn Bhd to take over smoothly. This is liken to famous saying ‘Plan to Fail, Fail to Plan”.

In the meantime, Malaysian Airlines System (MAS) sudden suspension of International flights to Sabah is also causing increasing complains every day. Some small & medium size tourism related operators and companies have been issuing memos to staff of possible cutback of remunerations due to the potential loss of the income as a result of this suspension.

This is definitely a very sad way of ushering into the new year 2012 especially for the lower wage earners group. New school term is only a few days away, and working parents will have severe headache of balancing their expenses with the low wage they earn.

PKR Sabah hopes that these announcement is not just a quick way to pacify the public, a dateline must be given to the Rakyat of Sabah on filling in the vacuums left behind by MAS. Meanwhile, PKR Sabah urged that MAS to continue their International flights to Sabah and also to Sandakan until Sabah Air has fully filled in the vacuum. At least MAS has to fulfill their Corporate Social Responsibility to the Rakyat of Sabah.

- Sabahkini