Malaysia Airports Holdings Eyes 3 New Airlines This Year

SEPANG (Selangor, Malaysia) Feb 11 (Bernama)-- Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) expects to welcome another three new airlines that will start operating from Kuala Lumpur this year, said Managing Director Badlisham Ghazali. He said the three Asian airlines would join the existing 69 airlines that are currently operating in Kuala Lumpur. "We will wait for them to come. They have already filed their schedules but we don't know when they will be coming," he told the media after welcoming Himalaya Airlines' inaugural flight here, Friday. Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal-China joint venture airline, makes its inaugural flight from Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur with a full flight load, marking its third destination after Doha and Colombo since starting its scheduled flight operations from May 31, 2016. Badlisham said Himalaya Airlines is the 69th airline operating out of Kuala Lumpur, and the Kathmandu-KL route network would make the Kuala Lumpur International Airport an effective hub for connecting people from Nepal to destinations in Southeast Asia. Himalaya Airlines President Zhao Guo Qiang said there were around 700,000 Nepalese working in Malaysia and for the coming weeks, the airline had received overwhelming response to flight bookings. "This is definitely going to contribute to the cordial relationship, as well as business development between Nepal and Malaysia," he added. The launch airfare for KL-Kathmandu-KL flight starts from RM928 (round trip), and the airline offers five weekly flights. Himalaya Airlines plans to fly to Yangon (Myanmar), Dammam (Saudi Arabia), Delhi, Ahmedabad and Chennai in India under its first phase expansion soon, and later to Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Hong Kong, Bangkok (Thailand), as well as Beijing, Lhasa and Chengdu in China. -- BERNAMA