Malaysia Airlines launched new service between Kota Kinabalu and Singapore on Saturday, August 27, 2022. The inaugural flight, MH648, arrived at Kota Kinabalu Airport from Singapore’s Changi International Airport at 12:25 local time.
On Sunday (August 28, 2022), Malaysia Airlines announced the launch of new service between Kota Kinabalu International Airport (BKI) and Singapore’s Changi International Airport (SIN). The inaugural flight, MH648, arrived in Kota Kinabalu at 12:25 local time on Saturday, August 27, 2022 from Singapore, where guests were welcomed by a traditional water canon salute, a welcome ceremony and goodies to mark the special occasion. The ceremony was attended by representatives of Malaysia Airlines Berhad, Tourism Malaysia, Sabah Tourism Board and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad.
In Sunday’s announcement, Malaysia Aviation Group’s Chief Executive Officer, Captain Izham Ismail, said,
“We are delighted to expand our connectivity to Singapore as many of our passengers opt for this route for business and leisure travel. This will further boost connectivity and flexibility for passengers bound to Singapore, as the airline also offers direct flights to the country via our main hub of Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Kuching. With this new service, passengers from Singapore can seamlessly connect to the Land Below the Wind to discover the scenic attractions of Sabah and even Fly Malaysia to surrounding states from BKI via sister airlines Firefly and MASwings.
“We look forward to further expanding our growth, introducing new strategic routes and increasing our capacity to achieve more than 70% of our pre-COVID-19 capacity by year-end.”
Sabah Tourism Board’s Chief Executive Officer, Puan Noredah, added,
“Sabah Tourism Board will continue to promote Sabah as a preferred holiday destination to Singaporeans and also to use the popular Singapore hub as a transit point for long haul market travellers to reach Sabah. Since the reopening of the SIN-BKI route in April, we have recorded an upward trend with 1,248 arrivals in May and 3,051 arrivals in June. With the inclusion of Malaysia Airlines, we are confident that this trend will continue.”
The route between Kota Kinabalu and Singapore Changi will be operated with a Boeing 737-800 three times weekly on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Flight MH647 will depart Kota Kinabalu (BKI) at 07:00, while the return flight, MH648 will depart Changi at 10:00 (all times local).