Firefly (FY, Penang) has announced it will suspend its services to Singapore as of December 1, 2018, as it still has not received regulatory go-ahead for launching operations to Singapore Seletar.

The carrier is set to terminate its current flights from three Malaysian airports, Kuala Lumpur Subang, Ipoh, and Kuantan, to Singapore Changi at the end of November 2018. The subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines (MH, Kuala Lumpur International), which operates ATR72-500s, is currently the sole turboprop operator at the Singaporean gateway. The routes were initially due to resume immediately from a newly opened terminal at Seletar as of December 1.

"[The flights will be suspended] until the relevant authorities have cleared remaining matters in relation to the Singapore authority's plans to move turboprop operations from Changi International to Seletar. Firefly has not been provided any definitive timeline by the authorities for the delay," the Malaysian carrier said.

Firefly added that it was ready to resume services to Singapore and start serving Seletar immediately upon receiving appropriate clearances.

As a part of the plan to ease congestion at Changi, Seletar has been expanded with a new SGD80 million dollar (USD59.1 million) passenger terminal able to handle 700,000 passengers per annum. The secondary civilian airport serving Singapore has not seen any scheduled services since Berjaya Air (J8, Kuala Lumpur Subang) relocated to Changi in 2010. Seletar is currently used for general aviation, flight training, and charter operations. It also hosts maintenance bases and is home to a Rolls-Royce assembly plant.