On Thursday, 18 July 2019, Malindo Air launched its inaugural flight connecting Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Varanasi in India. With this new service, Malindo Air becomes the first Malaysian carrier to operate direct flights between KL and Varanasi, India’s holy city.
The new KL-Varanasi route will serve three flights per week, using Boeing 737-800 aircraft. According to Malindo Air CEO, Chandran Rama Muthy, this route has the potential to serve both inbound and outbound travellers, facilitating leisure, business, and visits to friends and family.
Rama Muthy also stated that Malindo’s goals are aligned with the government’s tourism and economic objectives, which are to attract more visitors to Malaysia. This will increase passengers’ arrivals at KLIA, which is envisioned to be the main regional hub of Asia.
“We have (a total of) 224 flights weekly between India and KL and Indian travellers can travel from 14 cities to Malaysia,†stated Datuk Hidayat Abdul Hamid, High Commissioner of Malaysia to India.
“We are promoting tourism beyond Kuala Lumpur, focusing on destinations like Ipoh, Johor, Kota Kinabalu, Sarawak and the beautiful unexplored beaches, to attract one million Indian tourists by 2020,†he added.
