Firefly feels the pain from Singapore suspension

Firefly has seen “significant impact” on its revenue and profit from the recent suspension of operations to Singapore due to the ongoing Malaysia-Singapore dispute. The turboprop operator had to suspend all flights to Singapore from 1 December, the same day it was due to move operations from Changi airport to Seletar airport, after failing to gain approval from Malaysia’s civil aviation regulator for operations from Seletar. Firefly CE Ignatius Ong said that Singapore is the second most important market for the carrier, after Penang, in terms of frequency and revenue. "It is putting a huge hole in Firefly's profit and loss [statement]," he said of the suspension. The carrier used to operate 10 flights a day out of Singapore – seven to Kuala Lumpur, two to Ipoh and one to Kuantan. These accounted for about three of its 12 ATR 72s in service. Ong said the airline had considered deploying the turboprops elsewhere, but decided against doing so because it wants to be able to mount flights to Singapore once regulatory approval comes through. It is instead taking advantage of the downtime to push forward maintenance work for its fleet. “From a schedule integrity point of view, we’re not doing anything for now. We’re still quite hopeful that this thing should be sorted out in the next couple of weeks,” he added.<br/>