21 May 2001 KUALA LUMPUR - All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan’s second biggest airline, will resume flights to Kuala Lumpur on July 23, after having ceased its passenger flights here only in March.
ANA, which started operations at the Sultan Abdul Aziz airport in Subang in July 1995, suspended its five times a week Kansai (Osaka) - Kuala Lumpur flights on March 24. The airline cited non-profitability for terminating the flights. Its cargo operations were however maintained.
ANA will resume flights on a new route - from Narita to Kuala Lumpur. The flights will operate three times a week via Bangkok, using a 274-seater Boeing 777-200 aircraft.
An ANA spokesperson told TravelWeekly East the airline is resuming flights to KLIA for "commercial reasons".
KLIA has seen a series of pullouts by foreign carriers since it opened in mid-1998. The latest to withdraw was Russian carrier Aeroflot, which suspended its twice-weekly flights to KL at end-March.
Meanwhile, Qatar Airways, the national carrier of Qatar, may fly to the KLIA in December.
According to Bernama, Qatar Airways general manager for commercial, Peter Foster, was recently in KL meet officials and expressed confidence that his airline could penetrate the Malaysian market.
Malaysia Airports said in a statement last week Qatar Airways has agreed in principle to commence flights to KLIA from December on the Doha-Kuala Lumpur sector. The flights will be on its new Airbus 320-200, which is now in operations on short and medium sectors.