SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – Jin Air Co., the budget carrier unit of Korean Air Lines Co., said Friday it will temporarily offer flights to Johor Baharu in Malaysia early next year to meet travel demand during the winter holiday season.
Jin Air plans to deploy its B777-200ER jet configured to take 393-seats on the route to the Malaysia’s southern border city. The airline said in a statement that it has planned twice a week flights from Jan. 2 to March 2.
“If there is strong demand, we may consider regularly serving the route,” a company spokesman said.
Currently, there is no domestic budget carrier that offers flights to Johor Baharu, he said.
The move is also part of the budget carrier’s efforts to offset a sharp decline in travel demand from China amid ongoing political tensions between the two countries over the deployment of an advanced U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea, called THAAD, to deter North Korean provocations.
In March, Beijing banned the sale of group travel packages to South Korea in retaliation against the THAAD deployment, which it argues can be used to spy on its military.
Jin Air now operates 24 passenger jets — four B777-200ER jets and 20 B737-800s on 33 international routes including those to Hawaii, Guam and numerous Asian cities.
(Yonhap)