Is Ipoh an attractive place for vacation? Yes. Lots of nature, lots of temples, lots of hills and lots of greenery. For shopping? Not really. The food? Surely. Would Singaporeans be interested in Ipoh? Potentially, yes. One of Singapore’s low cost carrier, Tigerair would be commencing service from may 29. It would operate four weekly flights between Ipoh and Singapore on every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Bookings for these flights start on April 20. Tigerair CEO Lee Lik Hsin said, “We are excited to add Ipoh to our growing Asia network and be the first to operate jet flights in Ipoh.” Ipoh would be Tigerair’s 4th Malaysian destination besides Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi and Penang.
Tigerair is the 4th airline to be operating from the Sultan Azlan Shah airport. Currently, Malindo, Firefly and Sriwijaya Air operates flights between Medan, Singapore and Johor Bahru. Thus far I have never heard of any significant happenings in Ipoh. Many Ipohans who have completed their Form 5 or Form 6 would most of the time proceed to universities outside Ipoh and out of these, most are likely to be working elsewhere instead of Ipoh. However, do note that Ipoh is still Malaysia’s 5th biggest city and in terms of actual facilities and attractions would be second to none. In fact the cost of living is also much lower and she has been ranked one of the top retirement cities in the world! Read here: Best place always; Retire in Ipoh.
If we think a little bit, do you believe Tigerair is starting the 4 flights per week between Ipoh and Singapore because there are a lot of Ipohans who would want to visit Singapore for vacation? Or do you believe there are also almost equal number of Singaporeans who may just want to visit Ipoh, know more about Ipoh and really interested with Ipoh as another city for their retirement consideration? Perhaps it may be time to really think seriously about those high-rise developments in Ipoh? Oh yeah, the minimum property purchase price in Ipoh for foreigners is set at RM350,000 only. Actually, today in Ipoh there are really not many options for RM350,000 and below but for Singaporeans, even a higher number seems totally palatable. Their HDB flat in a good location can be as high as S$1,000,000 (RM2.7 Million). Yes, HDB flat has no car park space allocated and no swimming pool and other usual creature comforts.
Perhaps now, we can see some reasons why Tigerair is starting that route between Ipoh-Singapore. They may be wrong, of course and stop the route in future. For now, let’s believe they are right in their assessment. Of course, for me, I would retire in Ipoh. Just hope I can afford something by then.
written on 2 Apr 2015
Next suggested article: Ipoh Retirement, doing nothing?
