If you tell East Malaysian that Malaysia airfare is world cheapest definitely they will tell you you are dreaming as East Malaysian all this while experiencing unfair high airfare especially for flights within Sarawak.
May be they are talking about international airfares comparison that could be the case cheapest internationally. But that bring no cheers to East Malaysian as at time Sibu - Miri airfares could cost more than RM1,000 and when you use 7-8 hours bus service it will cost you about RM100 one way (correct me if I am wrong as long time not using bus service). Worse still both Malaysian Airlines and AirAsia during festival seasons opt for no upper limit airfares charges making "World Cheapest Airfares" very insulting.
They have been many calls of setting maximum airfares airline could charge for domestic flights however, it seems that Malaysian authority could not comply to such request for unknown reasons. Based on anti competition Act, no airlines could team up and agreed to charge their customers excessively during festival seasons. If during normal season they only charge one fifth of festival season airfare charge it makes no sense why the authority allows them to charge five times of the normal airfares during festival season. Something needs to be done seriously. May be someone should use the Anti Competition Act and seriously lodge a complaint to the authority concerned?