GE15: Voters eager to return home to vote, ticket sales skyrocket

KUALA LUMPUR: Public transportation tickets are flying off the rack and getting sold out from most conveyors as voters are eager to return home in order to fulfill their duty as a responsible citizen by going to the polls on Nov 19 in the country's 15th general election (GE15).

States such as Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Penang have announced Nov 18 as a public holiday while the Higher Education Ministry (MOHE) is allowing five-day leave for students from Nov 17 to 21 to encourage them to vote.

Bernama's monitoring of various commercial bus ticketing websites has shown the routes towards the northeast and northwest territories of Malaysia were sold out.

A spokesperson for Sani Express said their bus tickets have been sold out for the dates between Nov 16 to 21 as voters had bought their tickets as early as the announcement of the polling date on Oct 20 to avoid missing out from voting but they will provide extra buses according to demand.

"Looking at our system, for the north we will add a bus, the same for the east (coast). Glad to say, we will add one bus to each destination," he said when contacted by Bernama.

However, other alternatives are available albeit with limited seats as Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) is providing additional special train services to the East Coast and electric train services (ETS) with a total of 716 tickets offered for special train services and 2,520 tickets for ETS train services.

"According to the latest data on ETS and KTM ticket sales till Nov 9, 93 per cent of tickets have been sold for routes from Kuala Lumpur heading to Ipoh, Perak, while to Butterworth, Penang (83 per cent), Padang Besar, Perlis (77 per cent) while 96 per cent of tickets for routes from Kuala Lumpur to Tumpat, Kelantan have been sold," KTMB informed.

Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines will be increasing overall flights from 26 to 44 flights, as well as 16 to 24 domestic flight services upgraded to be using the wide-body A330 aircraft on several routes involving Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.

Its Group Chief Executive Officer Captain Izham Ismail said since the launch of "Jom Balik Mengundi" on Oct 20, bookings on Malaysia Airlines have surged by 7 per cent over their daily average, with nearly 70,000 passenger bookings.

"We have also increased the capacity by 30 per cent to main domestic destinations within Peninsular Malaysia such as Penang and Kota Bharu as well as Sabah and Sarawak.

"There are 140,000 seats made available by optimising all of our fleets to support both air transport movements via Malaysia Airlines during GE15," he said in a statement today.

-- BERNAMA