KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIA: AirAsia can now fly direct from three major towns in Sabah and Sarawak to Singapore.
Transport Minister Datuk Ong Tee Keat said officials of his ministry and their Singapore counterparts would meet later this month to facilitate the direct flights from Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Miri to the island republic.
"Our negotiations will be based on reciprocity. We hope to finalise it this month," he told reporters after attending the Sabah MCA convention here.
He said the ministry had been given the green light by the government to negotiate for the low-cost carrier to provide direct flights to Singapore from the three major centres in Sabah and Sarawak.
He also disclosed that his officials would be discussing increasing the frequency of the flights to Singapore. Currently, there are two flights daily.
"We hope by December the additional flights to Singapore by AirAsia will be implemented," Ong said, adding that the move was part of Asean's road map towards liberalisation of aviation.
On issues pertaining to services of Puspakom and Road Transport Department, he said that he had issued a warning to privately-operated Puspakom to act on their centres that might be involved in corrupt practices or abuse of power.
He noted that certain Puspakom centres had forced clients to buy highly priced accessories like reflectors from vendors operating at the centre.
"I told Puspakom to stop such practice immediately as they were arm twisting their clients. That is unacceptable," he said.
He also said he would expedite effective e-services to help overcome long queues at their counters as well as tackle corruption and the use of runners.
