LANGKAWI: The domestic tourism sector on this duty-free island is finally coming alive, with more flights touching down at the international airport.
Langkawi Development Authority CEO Ahmad Hezri Adnan said this meant that more tourists were flying in, thus giving a huge boost to tourism operators on the island, badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“A total of 27 flights arrived at the airport yesterday, with 23 today.
“We were informed that hotel bookings in the island have been encouraging and if it stays that way, we can achieve the target of 250,000 tourist arrivals this month,” he said.
He told reporters this after welcoming AirAsia’s inaugural flight from Kota Bharu, Kelantan, which touched down at 1.15pm.
It is learnt that since Dec 17, the airport had been handling more than 20 flight arrivals per day from Kuala Lumpur; Senai, Johor; Subang, Selangor; and Penang.
This trend is expected to continue until the end of this month.
Regarding the Kota Bharu-Langkawi route, Hezri said AirAsia was scheduled to operate three flights per week — on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday — beginning today.
“Today’s flight, with 96 passengers aboard, took one hour and five minutes to arrive from Kota Bharu.
“The Langkawi-Kota Bharu flight, with 108 passengers aboard, departed at 1.40pm,” he said, adding that AirAsia would operate its Ipoh-Langkawi route on Wednesdays.