Monday 26 December 2011

CRIED FOUL OVER DECISION TO SUSPEND FLIGHT

PKR Supreme Council Member cum PKR Sabah Secretary DrRoland Chia cried foul over the decision of MAS to suspend four international flights into Sabah from early next year.

PKR Sabah has received many complains over the last 24hours over this drastic decision especially from the tourism and service industry. This is a double blow to the recent announcements of cancellation of MAS flights from KL-Sandakan-KL which is already hurting the tourism and palm oil industry in Sandakan. Many players from the Tourism industry in Sabah have already lodged their displeasure on these announcements.

Sabah which is internationally famous for her ecotourism required all the air connectivity to sustain this industry which indirectly creates employment and economic spin offs to the local community in Sabah. Such cancellation will not augur well with leaping out Sabah out from the second poorest state in Malaysia. The tourism industry is the main export in terms of service oriented industry in Sabah.

The cancellation of flights from Osaka, Japan and Seoul Korea will also hamper the growth of golf tourism industry in Sabah which is directly linked to MICE - Meeting, Incentives, Conferences and Events groups. The MICE programme is a multimillion dollar service export oriented for Sabah.

We urged the Deputy Minister of Transport who is a Sabahan and the authorities concern to seriously look into these matters. Sabahans oil and gas has been piped away with only 5% royalty back to Sabah, the last thing we want is to see our income generated from tourism in Sabah to be siphoned away too. Please do not kill the golden goose that lays the golden eggs. This will not be a good Christmas gift to the people of Sabah.

No comments:

Post a Comment