November 11, 2008 23:19 PM
From Haslinda Zainal
LONDON, Nov 11 (Bernama) -- The Tourism Ministry will bring up the matter of insufficient Kuala Lumpur-London flights by Malaysia Airlines (MAS) to the Cabinet, said its minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said.
She said the problem had affected tourist arrivals from Europe and London.
"Now with global fuel prices at a very low level, MAS should use the opportunity to increase its flight frequency on the KL-London route," she told reporters after opening Tourism Malaysia's booth known as Malaysia Pavilion at the World Travel Market fair at the ExCel London exposition park here Tuesday.
It is understood MAS, which used to operate some 14 flights a week on the route, had reduced the frequency to between 10 and 12 a week.
Azalina said this and other shortcomings like expensive airfares had caused Malaysians and Europeans to opt for other airlines.
She said apart from this, the London-Langkawi and London-Penang routes that had been scrapped, would also raised in the Cabinet.
Azalina also said that despite the economic crunch the world was facing, tourist arrivals in Malaysia showed an increase of 4.8 per cent as of October.
She said tourist arrivals from Britain as of October was 303,569, an increase of 36.1 per cent compared to arrivals for the whole of last year from that country.
"The daily average spending of tourists from the United Kingdom amounted to RM3,500 and their average length of stay was 9.6 days. This augurs well for Malaysia," she added.
Source: BERNAMA
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