Direct flights between Kota Kinabalu and two central Sarawak towns start again at the beginning of November. The Bintulu service resumes on 1 November with three flights a week, and the Sibu service follows on 2 November with four, both flown with Airbus A320 aircraft. Seats have been on sale since 2 September.

The restoration was announced on 15 September by Tiong King Sing, the federal Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister, who said it followed talks with the airline about putting both links back. Until they resume, a passenger flying from Bintulu or Sibu to Sabah connects through a third airport.

What returns, and on what schedule

The two services differ in start date and frequency, as the minister set them out:

  • Kota Kinabalu to Bintulu resumes on 1 November, three flights weekly.
  • Kota Kinabalu to Sibu begins on 2 November, four flights weekly.
  • Both routes are flown with Airbus A320 aircraft.
  • Tickets went on sale on 2 September, ahead of the announcement.

The aircraft type is the substantive change: the A320 is a narrowbody jet, where regional services across Sarawak are otherwise flown by turboprops and, on the shortest strips, 19-seat Twin Otters.

What the minister asked of the airline

Tiong said people rely on these services for jobs, schooling, business, tourism, hospital appointments and family visits, and that without a direct flight the journey takes longer and costs more because of the transit. He tied the Bintulu service to that town's growth as an industrial centre, and said the Sibu service would serve central Sarawak more widely.

He attached two conditions to the restoration. He told airlines to keep schedules stable and avoid frequent cancellations or last-minute changes, which he said erode passenger confidence, and urged AirAsia to hold fares down as far as market conditions allow.

Who flies these towns now

The incumbent is AirBorneo, the Sarawak government's airline. It took over all MASwings operations on 1 January 2026, under a sale and purchase agreement signed with Malaysia Aviation Group on 12 February 2025. MASwings had been East Malaysia's first commuter airline, set up on 1 October 2007, and over its life operated more than 430,000 flights and carried over 19 million passengers.

Its fleet is built for short sectors. In January 2026 the state tourism minister, Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, put it at eight ATR and six Twin Otter aircraft — enough for rural and short-haul work, he said, but not for longer routes without larger aircraft.

That is changing at Kuching rather than at Bintulu or Sibu. AirBorneo planned three wet-leased Boeing 737-800s with Kuching as the jet hub, keeping Kota Kinabalu and Miri as turboprop hubs, and named Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Kota Kinabalu as the first jet destinations. The first of those flew on 20 July 2026, Kuching to Kuala Lumpur, twice daily at RM375 one way in economy and RM736 in business. Malaysia Airports recorded the same start date, and a daily Kuching-Singapore service from 22 July.

Neither route carries a subsidy

Sarawak's trunk air routes are commercial, not supported services, and the federal Transport Ministry has set out why. After a 2017 review by the Malaysian Aviation Commission, the Kuching-Sibu, Kuching-Miri and Kuching-Bintulu routes were treated as intercity flights rather than Rural Air Services, because they no longer met the definition of a Public Service Obligation once they were jointly operated by MASwings with AirAsia, Malaysia Airlines or both. Routes in that class, the ministry said, should not receive subsidies, and opening them commercially was meant to draw more airlines in.

That statement concerns the routes out of Kuching, not the two from Kota Kinabalu. It is, though, the clearest official account of where the subsidy line falls: a trunk route between two towns is expected to pay for itself.

Why a restored route is not a permanent one

These links have been withdrawn before on commercial grounds. In November 2023 AirAsia told the Sarawak Transport Ministry it would suspend its Singapore-Miri and Singapore-Sibu flights from 21 February 2024, citing low load factors, heavy losses and fleet rationalisation. The state minister then, Lee Kim Shin, wrote asking the airline to keep both at reduced frequency instead, and recorded the loads at 69 per cent to Miri and 67 per cent to Sibu. Firefly began flying Miri to Kota Kinabalu twice weekly that same month.

The wider domestic market has not been strong either. Malaysia Airports reported 3.5 million domestic passengers in July 2026, down 19.8 per cent year on year, with airlines adjusting capacity against operating costs and demand.

What the airports themselves are getting

Work at the Sarawak airports is modest by comparison with the aircraft news. Malaysia Airports listed refreshed check-in counters at Sibu Airport among the improvements finished in July 2026.

The larger sums are going to the smallest airfields. The federal government has allocated RM30 million to upgrade the short take-off and landing airports at Long Banga and Ba'kelalan, RM15 million each, with runway extensions planned so the strips can take more than the limited load a Twin Otter carries. Deputy Transport Minister Hasbi Habibollah gave those figures on 28 August 2026.

For Bintulu and Sibu, the test of the November services will be the same one the 2023 suspension turned on: whether enough seats sell to keep them flying.

Sources