Friday, November 27th, 2009 13:44:00

KUALA LUMPUR: Firefly Sdn Bhd is targeting to achieve one million passengers by the end of this year. As of Sept 2009, the carrier has managed to achieve 670,192 passengers.

Firefly’s head of marketing and communications, Angelina C. Fernandez, in an exclusive interview with Mail Money said that for this year, they saw a 170 per cent increase in terms of passengers compared to last year.

Angelina also pointed out that the increase in passengers may also be due to its increased number of flights to Singapore.

The airline, which is also known as the “community airline”, had in July launched its first flight to Singapore from the Skypark Subang terminal and now is servicing the route four times daily.

In September, Firefly took a step further when it decided to extend their connectivity to Singapore via Ipoh, Kuantan and Kuala Terengganu.

“Changi Airport is the target market as it is a major transit point for various airlines, and our target is not only the locals but also tourists who use the airport to fly to other destinations,” she said.

She added that apart from Subang, the three other States have good tourist attraction spots and Firefly has made travelling easier to these places.

Firefly provides routes to various points within Peninsular Malaysia, Southern Thailand and Sumatra in Indonesia, aligning itself with the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMTGT) agenda.
Angelina said currently 50 per cent of Firefly passengers are business and corporate travellers who travel on a shuttle basis. However, of late there has been a rise in passengers travelling on leisure.

“Ever since the increase in the leisure market, besides booking online using credit cards, we are also looking
at alternatives and varieties in mode of payment and booking via mobile, banking-in and also postal to make things easier for those who live in rural areas,” she said.

For such added mode of payments, Angelina said that Firefly is in talks with various telecommunication
companies and banks to start the system next year.

When asked on plans for the airlines next year, Angelina said Firefly has expansion plans which will be carried out in stages.

She said the Phase One plan commenced in August this year and is expected to be completed next month.

She added that the fleet expansion to Singapore was under the Phase One plan.

Phase Two will commence in January next year and will end in the second quarter.The airline is operating with seven aircrafts and will be adding three more by next year which is part of the Phase Two plan.

Next year Angelina said the company is planning to strengthen their value-added services for customer satisfaction.

“We have launched new routes this year and next year we are aiming to improve services. We want to strengthen and try to cover all loopholes,” she said.

When asked about the criteria to expand their flights, Angelina said they were looking at demand and also places which are a bit different from the normal routes other airlines are concentrating on.

She added that Firefly has the advantage as its 72-seater airplanes can land in airports with shorter runways.

The carrier operates under the two-year old FlyFirefly Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Malaysian Airline System Berhad.