MALAYSIA WELCOMES INAUGURAL JIN AIR FLIGHT TO KOTA KINABALU

 KOTA KINABALU

The Deputy Director General of Tourism Malaysia Dato’ Haji Azizan Noordin, as well as representatives from Sabah Tourism Board personally welcomed passengers aboard the Jin Air inaugural flight arriving at Kota Kinabalu International Airport, Sabah, from Incheon, Korea, today.

Beginning today, the Boeing 737-800 aircraft operates the Incheon – Kota Kinabalu route with a capacity of 183 passengers on each flight. It runs 7 times per week during peak period, and 4 times per week during non-peak period.

In conjunction with the new flight, Tourism Malaysia has partnered with Jin Air to promote Malaysia over a 3-month campaign. The promotion campaign is expected to make a total of 86 flights, bring in an estimated 15,738 passengers between 22 December 2014 and 29 March 2015. This effort is in line with the Tourism National Key Economic Area (NKEA) initiative to enhance connectivity to priority medium-haul markets.

Kota Kinabalu has recently emerged as a favourite destination among Koreans. During the first nine months of 2014, a total of 90,225 Korean tourists travelled to Sabah, an increase of 17 percent compared to the same period last year. In 2013, a total of 106,203 Koreans visited Sabah, an increase of 32.1% compared to the previous year. Malaysia recorded a total of 274,622 Korean tourist arrivals in 2013.

Background on Jin Air

Jin Air Co. Ltd is a low cost airline established in 2008 in South Korea. It is a fully owned subsidiary of Korean Air. Jin Air currently operates flights to 16 international routes from Seoul/Incheon to Okinawa, Nagasaki, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Vientiane, Clark, Cebu, Kota Kinabalu, Macau, Hong Kong, Guam and 3 international routes from Jeju to Shanghai, Xi’an, Quanzhou and 1 domestic route from Gimpo to Jeju.