Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dato Sri Tiong King Sing as well as representatives from Malaysia Airlines and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) personally welcomed passengers aboard the Malaysia Airlines charter flight arriving at Kuala Lumpur International Airport from Shenyang, China on last Sunday.
Flight MH8827, a special charter carrying 287 passengers on Airbus 330 from the city of Shenyang, in Liaoning province, north east of China. This latest charter flight is among the surge of new routes and charter flights from China for the Chinese New Year and spring festival holiday starting from January 2024. Malaysia has received 6 charters to date, Firefly route Nanjing-Tawau (starting 23 January), Batik Air route Chengdu-Langkawi (starting 5 Feb), Batik Air route Zhengzhou-KUL (starting 5 February), Batik Air route Chengdu-Kota Kinabalu (starting 9 February), Batik Air route Chongqing-Langkawi (starting 10 February), and Batik Air route Xian-KUL (starting 11 February).
For 2024, Malaysia has received several new routes by local and foreign airlines namely China Eastern Airlines route Beijing-KUL (4 times weekly, starting 31 January), Loong Air route Hangzhou-KUL (3 times weekly, starting 1 February), Batik Air route Kunming-KUL (4 times weekly, starting 9 February), and upcoming Batik Air route Zhangjiajie-KUL (3 times weekly, starting 18 February).
The announcement of visa free for Chinese travellers effective 1 December 2023 has spurred enquiries and bookings to Malaysia from China. Trip.com has reported that Malaysia will receive 53.9 percent increase in inbound travel to Malaysia for the Chinese New Year in 2024 as compared to last year.
In 2023, Malaysia welcomed 1.47 million arrivals from China, an exponential growth of 593.4% in comparison to the same period in 2022 with 212,603 arrivals.
Leave a comment