by The Malaysian Reserve

FLYFIREFLY Sdn Bhd (Firefly), Malaysian Airline System Bhd’s (MAS’s) low-cost carrier unit, is targeting a marked increase in sales numbers at the upcoming Matta Fair 2010 from previous years’ figures on the back of international holiday packages and other attractive offers, its marketing and communications head Angelina C Fernandez said. The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) Fair is the country’s premier travel and tourism fair. The fair, which is slated to be held at the Putra World Trade Centre on March 12-14, is expected to attract close to 80,000 visitors this year.

Speaking at a press conference in Subang, Selangor, yesterday, Fernandez said the Matta Fairs were strong contributors to Firefly’s revenue and, since the firm started offering international packages via a tie-up with its parent firm, she expected a three times fold increase in sales from previous years’ contributions. “Last year, we did sales of more than half a million (at Matta Fair 2009) and that was only with Firefly destinations. About 1.5 million sales?

 Yes,” she added. Fernandez said the strength of Firefly’s offerings via its Firefly Holiday online travel portal were strong selling points for the brand. “Our competitive edge over our competitors is evident in the combination of destinations that we have, which is Malaysia Airlines, MasWings and Firefly,” she said. “That says it all, you have connectivity with all three carriers. You can fly to destinations like Singapore and from there fly off to destinations like Kota Kinabalu, Kuala Terengganu or Ipoh.

 Furthermore, at last year’s Matta, our Singapore flights were not available yet and today we’re flying five times a day,” she added.Launched in 2007, Mas-Wings is another MAS subsidiary and it caters to the air travel needs of East Malaysians. Asked on why Firefly was expected to hit the 1.5 million sales target, Firefly Holidays head Lau Yin May said at Matta Fair 2009, the low cost carrier only offered domestic and regional destinations and packages like Thailand and Indonesia.

“With Firefly Holidays going international, as of last month, we’re now talking about packages to about 100 destinations worldwide. That three-times fold target is us being very prudent, and we could even meet or exceed this target,” she added. When asked on whether new holiday packages and destinations would be added this year, given that Firefly Holidays already had links with about 50,000 hotels, Lau said no and yes.

“In terms of Firefly, not at the fair and, at this point, Firefly is quite stable in terms of the destinations that we have currently. In terms of Firefly Holidays, the new destinations will be MAS destinations. As long as MAS flys there, we will have packages there.

Take London, UK, for example, our website has 33 pages of hotels and each page lists ten hotels,” she added. The travel packages for Firefly packages available at Matta Fair 2010 are valid until Oct 2010 while its MAS packages are open until 2011.The firm is also offering prizes totalling RM500,000, which include MAS tickets to Los Angeles, Istanbul and Hong Kong as well as Blackberry phones from telecommunications

provider Maxis.