FIREFLY will ramp up its flight operations during the upcoming Hari Raya festive season in anticipation of heightened demand.

The carrier will operate five additional flights to Kota Bharu, three additional flights to Pekanbaru, and two additional flights to Medan from its central hub of Subang. From its northern Penang hub, one extra flight to Langkawi will be added.

These supplementary return flights are scheduled to depart on August 16, 17, 18, 25 and 26.

Ignatius Ong, Firefly CEO, said: “ Historically, the demand for flights on these routes during the Hari Raya period has always been high, but this year the demand has been even more so. Based on our advance sales figures, we can see that most of the flights on the key festive dates are (already) averaging 65 to 70 percent full."

This year, the Hari Raya holiday in Malaysia falls on August 19-20, resulting in a long weekend, while the Malaysian National Day public holiday falls on a Friday just 11 days later.

"With two long weekends within weeks of each other, which also coincide with the one-week school holidays, we had anticipated higher demand from both Muslims looking to go for a short break as well as non-Muslim holiday-makers, and the sales numbers thus far prove this," said Ong.