KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama): AirAsia’s inaugural service from Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi on Thursday (Sept 16) morning under the travel bubble recorded a 100% flight load, the carrier says, signifying a strong rebound for domestic air travel.

       The low-cost carrier said the maiden flight, the first of nine scheduled daily flights from Kuala Lumpur, left KLIA2 at 9.50am utilising an Airbus A321neo.

       "Aside from Kuala Lumpur (63 flights weekly), AirAsia also has flights to Langkawi departing from Penang (14 times weekly), Johor Baru (seven times weekly), Ipoh (three times weekly) and Kota Baru (three times weekly), making a total of 90 weekly flights," it said in a statement.

       AirAsia Malaysia chief executive officer Riad Asmat said over 200,000 seats to Langkawi were sold in less than a week.

       "To facilitate this movement, we have prepared extensively and implemented robust and comprehensive health and safety protocols to ensure all of our guests can travel safely, with our 100% vaccinated crew and frontliners.

       "After months of preparation, we are thrilled to get the country flying again and are ready to scale up our operations to meet overwhelming demand.

       "We hope more travel bubbles will be established across the country soon in line with the accelerated vaccination roll-out, and eventually across the region when it is safe to do so," he added.

       AirAsia also launched its ride-hailing services in Langkawi on Thursday with fully-vaccinated drivers. – Bernama