Haze Grounds Short-Haul Flights: Firefly Cancels Subang–Seletar Route as Education Ministry Sets Up State Haze Task Forces
KUALA LUMPUR — The haze tightened its grip on daily life in Malaysia on October 10. Firefly, a subsidiary of Malaysia Aviation Group, announced that flights between Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport (SZB) near Kuala Lumpur and Singapore's Seletar Airport (XSP) were cancelled up to Wednesday due to 'weather and haze conditions' — a 'proactive safety measure' first announced on October 10, citing low visibility. Affected passengers are being rebooked onto Malaysia Airlines flights between Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Singapore Changi Airport, subject to seat availability.
Also on October 10, Malaysia's Ministry of Education issued a media statement directing state education directors to establish Haze Monitoring Task Force Committees, involving the State Education Department (JPN) and District Education Office (PPD), to monitor daily Air Pollutant Index (API) readings at designated times. Based on that information, state directors will decide whether schools operate as usual or switch to home-based learning (BDR/PdPR). Announcement times were fixed to help boarding-school families plan: Group A schools by 2:45 p.m. on Saturdays, Group B by the same time on Sundays, and before 5:45 p.m. on other days, using Department of Environment API readings. Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek had earlier asked all state and district education offices to keep monitoring the haze and act immediately if required.
The haze originates from forest and land fires on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo — Indonesia's most intense fire season in 11 years, spurred by an El Niño expected to be among the strongest in four decades. IQAir data this week put Singapore's air quality index at 199 and Kuala Lumpur's at 183; readings above 150 are generally considered unhealthy, and above 300 hazardous.
Across the strait, Singapore's government has reintroduced subsidised care for haze-related illnesses, as it last did in 2015, when smoke from Indonesian fires hung over the region for weeks. For business and family travellers between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, the cancelled short-haul flights are the most immediate disruption; routes and school arrangements may keep changing day by day with the wind and the fires.
Sources: Compiled from Firefly's statement (carried by multiple regional outlets in October 2026) and Malaysia's Ministry of Education statement dated October 10, 2026, summarised by Human Resources Online.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 梳邦机场停机坪上的飞萤航空客机，calflier001 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0（Wikimedia Commons）
