High housing costs and increased hybrid work are feeding the growth of cases like Racheal Kaur, which every day goes by plane to work.
For many people, the daily route for work involves a short car trip, train or even a walk. But for Racheal Kaur, a mother of two Malaysian children, the trip to work is anything but normal. Every business day, wakes up at 4 am, Caught a flight at 5:55 From Penang to Kuala Lumpur and arrives at his office at 7:45 am.
Kaur, who works for Airasia, opts for this demanding routine to maintain a better balance between professional and personal life. Despite working in the capital of Malaysia, he prefers to live in Penang, the Almost four hours by carto be closer to the family. When you fly daily for work, you can return home every night to spend time with the 12 -year -old son and the 11 -year -old daughter.
“With them growing up, I feel that they need the mother to be around more often,” Kaur told Newsflash, quoted by. “With this agreement, I can go home every daysee my children at night and help them with last-minute homework. ”
Although he works for an airline, Kaur continues to pay his daily flights. However, it insists that the cost continues to be lease From an apartment in Kuala Lumpur. By staying in Penang, it avoids the high cost of living in the capital and, at the same time, the tiring car trip between the two cities.
Kaur’s story is part of a growing trend of “super-commutters”-people who travel long distances to worksometimes even beyond state or national borders. This phenomenon is not exclusive to Malaysia. In major US cities, such as New York, thousands of workers make extreme travel. A 2012 Centro Rudin study for New York University Transport Policy and Management concluded that, in Manhattan alone, about 60,000 people were supercommuts.
The pandemic also changed work habits, leading to more flexible and unconventional displacement patterns. With teleworking or hybrid work, the workers started to Being able to live further from employmentsince the office travel is now less frequent.
Although the lifestyle of supercommut Request careful planning And resistance, many think it’s worth it. Whether for financial savings, career opportunities or family life, these long -distance workers are redefining modern travel.
