KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — News of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have yet to cause holidaymakers to cancel their flight bookings to Malaysia, the national travel association said today.

Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) president Hamzah Rahmat even suggested that now may be the safest time to fly, as major airlines would have “enhanced” their safety measures.

“We did not register any mass cancellation in terms of flight and visitor arrival.

“If there is such a thing, we would have found the KL International Airport empty,” Hamzah was quoted as saying by The Star daily on its website.

He noted that the recently-ended MATTA fairs in Johor Baru and Kuching saw an increase in the number of visitors and sales.

The US navy, which has been roped in to help Malaysia search for the missing aircraft east of Peninsular Malaysia from where it vanished without a trace on March 8, have now turned its sights west towards the Indian Ocean.  

The plane was last spotted on radar at 1.30am on March 8, about 120 nautical miles off Kota Baru, on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, near the South China Sea.

The Indian Ocean is far to the west of Malaysia.

For MH370 to reach that location, it would have had to fly several hours past 1.30am when it went missing. The aircraft, according to MAS, was carrying enough fuel to fly up to 8.30am that morning.

Rescue and intelligence officials are still verifying the credibility of the latest data received while search vessels head towards the Indian Ocean to continue their hunt for the aircraft there.

A Pentagon official reportedly  said that the USS Kidd was being moved at the request of Malaysia and is heading towards an area where the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea meet. It has helicopters aboard that can scour the area.

It should take more than 24 hours for the vessel to reach that location.

Vessels from India are also understood to be heading to the area to search for MH370.

As such, the new data has remained somewhat inconclusive for now, as have many other theories and information that have emerged on the mysterious disappearance of MH370 over the past seven days.

MH370 left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 12.41am on Saturday morning. The aircraft was carrying 239 people, including 12 flight crew members and two infants.