Rayani Air, a new airline based in Malacca, will begin three-weekly flights to five domestic destinations from its hub at the Malacca International Airport in Batu Berendam from January 2015.

Malacca Chief Minister Idris Haron said the country’s first boutique airline would use Fokker 50 planes for the inaugural routes between Melaka and Penang, Langkawi, Kota Baru, Kuching, and Kota Kinabalu.

He said as Malacca relied heavily on tourism, accessibility via land, sea and air was of paramount importance to attract more tourists to the state.

“Rayani Air will likely expand its operations by introducing flights to Surabaya, Yogyakarta and Medan to bring in more tourists from Indonesia,” he told reporters after opening the Malacca International Tourism Show and the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents Fair (Matta) 2014 in Malacca today.

Idris said the state government would not take up any equity in Rayani Air, but would consider the request to compensate the airline for shortfall in passengers.

“It has got to have at least 35 passengers for each flight on the 50-seater plane. The shortfall in passenger volume will be borne by the state government,” he said.

The Malacca state government had previously set up Melaka Air to fly to Penang and Medan, Indonesia but the service was halted because of poor response.

The airport is also a ‘white elephant’ because since March 15 this year no commercial flights had taken off due to poor response despite the government spending RM240 million to upgrade and lengthen the runway.

The Malacca Matta Fair 2014, a joint tourism promotion efforts undertaken by the Malacca Tourism Board and Matta, focuses on 12 sub-sectors.

Over 100 exhibitors are participating in the three-day exhibition starting today. Also participating in the exhibition are tourism boards from Thailand, Taiwan, Macau, Cuba, Indonesia and Singapore.

An estimated 50,000 visitors are expected at the exhibition.

- Bernama