In the news: Firefly’s return to Singapore, OTA rehlat’s partnership with PayPal, Canadian technology startup Betterez’s move to New Zealand
Airlines: Firefly is back in Singapore after end of airspace dispute
(Image credit: Seletar Airport)
The good news for many Malaysians, this writer included, is the resumption of flights by Malaysia Airlines Bhd’s subsidiary Firefly to Singapore on April 21.
The Malaysian premium short-haul airline suspended its Kuala Lumpur-Singapore service since December 1, 2018 following Malaysia’s protests of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) procedures for Seletar Airport (Seletar).
Firefly is able to fly again to Singapore as the latter and Malaysia have resolved the airspace dispute. Under an agreement signed on April 6, Singapore withdraws the ILS procedures for Seletar while Malaysia suspends indefinitely its permanent Restricted Area (PA) over Pasir Gudang in Johor. This enables aircrafts to fly into Seletar using a visual approach.
Malaysia Airlines, on its part, is heaving a sigh of relief as Firefly was incurring a loss in revenue of between RM15 million (US$3.6 million) to RM20 million (US$4.8 million) monthly with the suspension, according to Malaysia Airlines group chief executive Captain Izham Ismail.
Firefly’s service from the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang will now land in Seletar, instead of Changi, which has been upgraded at an estimated S$80million to be a hub for turboprop aircraft, private/business jets and chartered flights. The two-storey terminal, which opened last December, is designed to handle up to 700,000 passengers a year.
The carrier will have two daily flights between its Subang hub and Seletar from April 22 to 28, increasing to six daily flights after that. It hopes to up the frequency in the near future.
However, the airline did not disclose if or when it will restart its flights to Singapore from Kuantan in Pahang and Ipoh in Perak – two cities it connected with the island nation before the dispute over airspace led to the services’ discontinuation.
In a related development, Firefly has selected Sabre as it first global distribution system (GDS).
Sabre said in a statement that under this agreement, Firefly “will further strengthen its alignment with the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT), a cooperation initiative to accelerate economic and social transformation across the three countries.”
Apart from Singapore the airline, which was launched in April 2007, also provides connections to a few cities within Malaysia, southern Thailand and Indonesia.
Philip See, CEO of Firefly, commented that joining Sabre’s GDS “will enable us to reach our growth objectives, and to improve our distribution metrics beyond the markets where we’ve been operating in recent years.”
Payments: Middle East OTA rehlat partners PayPal to offer digital payment
Kuwait-based online travel agency (OTA) rehlat has formed a partnership with digital payments solution provider PayPal to provide customers with a seamless way to pay for services.
Consumers can now pay for their travel bookings directly from PayPal without the need for credit/debit cards or transmitting bank details, and receive notifications immediately.
Announcing the deal in a statement, rehlat said an additional advantage is the customers can also earn Karam+, the OTA’s travel reward points, on every booking.
Teaming up with PayPal also allow customers from non-GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), such as America and Europe, to enjoy rehlat’s services, said its assistant vice president – digital marketing Bhanu Laxman.
Speaking on the partnership rehlat’s chief operating officer Amanpreet Singh, said: “We have always believed in offering the best and the safest payment options to our customers and adding PayPal to our payment solutions confirms that.”
He added that the digital payment solution provider is “growing fast, building a notable reach in the Middle East.” It has over two million registered users in Saudi Arabia, 1.15 million in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and 700,000 in Kuwait.
PayPal is now available on rehlat’s Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and UAE domain.
Ground Transport: Canada’s Betterez expands into New Zealand with Red Travel
(Image credit: Red Travel)
Canadian technology startup Betterez is spreading its footprint to New Zealand with Red Travel, the charter division of Red Bus, a transport provider of Canterbury.
Based in Toronto, Betterez is a next generation reservations and ticketing management platform founded in 2011 that is helping to modernise the booking systems of operators in the ground travel industry.
“Helping bus operators around the world grow and thrive is important to us, and expanding into New Zealand has been a very exciting part of our growth,” said Tal Shalit, founder & CEO of Betterez.
He added that the reservations system of Red Travel, which transports passengers all around New Zealand’s South Island, was in need of an upgrade.
“Our ticket management platform will help them enhance the customer experience, expand their offerings and significantly improve the efficiency of operations through digitising their entire ticket management system.”
For Paul McNoe, Red Bus chief executive, Betterez not only helps modernise the company’s ticketing platform but also offers competitive features it has not used before.
“The new Betterez system has also given us the ability to combine our offerings – such as our activity and shuttle services – and we’re already seeing improvements in just a matter of weeks.”
• Featured image credit: Corinne Wan
