Sabah tourism in a fix over MAS’ move

The Sabah government doesn't think the federal Transport Ministry will reconsider their appeal against MAS' decision to suspend flights.

KOTA KINABALU: MAS’ decision to suspend several flights to and from Sabah has put the government and state tourism in a fix.

Embarassed by the airline’s decision, the state government has vowed to look for alternatives to prevent a downturn in Sabah’s tourism.

Yesterday, MAS announced that it will be suspending eight flight routes and this included flights from Kota Kinabalu to three destinations; Perth (Australia), Seoul (South Korea) and Osaka (Japan).

Unveilling its business plan last week, the airline said the route rationalising was aimed at becoming profitable by 2013.

In the third quarter of this year, the airline posted its third straight quarterly loss, owing to high fuel costs and increased competition.

Yesterday, State Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment, Masidi Manjun, in an immediate reaction to the announcement by MAS said the state government had appealed for reconsideration.

“My ministry is aware of MAS’ impending move to suspend these routes. We have had a series of high level meetings with MAS management to discuss the issue and to appeal to them not to proceed with this drastic move,” he said in a press statement.

Masidi said the decision by MAS “is sad and regrettable especially at a time when the industry is facing a stiff competitive and unpredictable global economic scenario.”

“But we won’t cry and do nothing. We will just move on,” he added.

Re-strategizing Sabah’s tourism

Masidi said the state cabinet has also been notified of the matter and conveyed its unhappiness with MAS’ decision.

“Based on the cabinet’s stand I have written a letter to the minister of transport expressing our objection to the routes termination as it would have a negative impact on the development of the tourism industry in Sabah.

“In fact my ministry through Sabah Tourism has offered to assist MAS to improve their passenger load from these destinations which MAS blames for operational losses,” he said.

Masidi however acknowledged that MAS was likely to ignore the state government’s plea due to the airline’s poor financial standing which has “severely affected its capacity to continue mounting flights to these loss-making destinations”.

He said the decision is bound to have a negative impact on tourism arrivals in Sabah especially in the short term as the industry would need time to realign its marketing strategy and priority.

“On our part we are not going to cry over spilled milk. We are moving on. We have in fact started strategising our next move to overcome this latest challenge and believe that this MAS episode would be a temporary setback.

“The ministry and Sabah Tourism are reviewing various options and have started talking to other airlines to ensure that the rate of tourism arrival in Sabah is sustainable or even improved.”