Craig

I forgot the details about the slot swap and I don't think it was ever disclosed publicly. But googling online makes it seems like MH wants to terminate code-share with AI and India threatening to restrict MH from operating to India. The slot swap happened in April 2007 and a new MOU was signed July 2007.

Unfortunately I do not have that on top of my head. But IIRC, Indian carriers need to use, don't quote me, 75% of their allocated seats before the foreign country can increase their seats. There are also some behind the scenes trade that can facilitate for an increment, e.g. MH sold/gave their daytime LHR slots (for MH 7/8) to Air India and Malaysia was granted more seats to India. Or if Malaysia is cash rich like Qatar, we can always wet lease planes from India and have them fly MY-IN, or Qantas for SYD/MEL-KUL.

No they aren't. Some are just holding on to their allocation for future expansion. I am sure Mavcom has a dormant period whereby if it's still not utilized, it will return back to the pool (that's where the revoked status comes in, instead of returned). The last MY-AU MOU was signed back in 12/2017. Doesn't help when AU carriers have 42,100 seats each way but none of the seats are used. Let's see how good Madani is in negotiating for more seats (along with India as well) and other international people to people matter (e.g. visa waiver for Malaysians traveling to Canada which hasn't shown any progress since last November). MH will be cutting MAA from 14 to 12x weekly 737 flights and those seats will be reallocated to BOM/DEL with 7x 333 and 3x 737 weekly each to BOM and DEL. India-MY has even less seats - 22,531 seats each week to the 6 metropolitan cities (DEL, BOM, MAA, HYD, BLR, CCU). Secondary/tertiary cities are unlimited.

Just had a look at the latest limited air traffic rights (updated 10th July) on Mavcom. Metropolitan Australia is full exhausted (0 out of 36,500 seats per week each way) - this probably explains why MH only received 727 seats and they plan to operate 333 on that route. It will be a 294 seater 333 (I have no idea where the 294 seater Airbus 333 comes from - MH 333 is 290, 332 is 287, and 339 is 297). My suspicion is it will be 3x 333 on that route with an average load factor of 86% max before it hits the 727 seat limit each week. Mavcom/CAAM will have to request OD to change their KUL-DPS-AU to a nonstop MY-AU or risk losing those seats allocated to them. The KUL-DPS-AU flights are mostly targeted towards DPS-AU, not so much MY-AU. And it seems like KUL-SYD is back on the 333 instead of the 339.

Does anyone know why MH skips row 3 on their 333/339 and row 4 on their 359? Is it some superstition I am not aware of? And it appears that CAN will join the list of 339 destinations next year.

Another good example is the current civil unrest/protest in Bangladesh. There are passengers who can't travel to the airport due to road closures or protests and could even be dangerous for people to be out on the streets (especially for MH197/AK78/OD161 that departs around 0200). Instead MH asked passengers to arrive 4 hours prior to departure.

Adverse weather or anything that's beyond the airline's control is not covered under EU261. They know that a lot of passengers will miss their flights due to delays or cancelations so they rather let passengers change themselves so it wouldn't create a mess at the airport. It actually helps the airline too and get the more urgent pax out of the way and let those passengers who have more time to voluntarily change their flight to a day/time that's less congested, thereby freeing up seats available. And in some cases, it is impossible for travelers to get to the airport, e.g. an annual event in Kelantan in December or so or the great Sri Muda flood of December 2022. The last thing people want to worry about when their house is flooded if they need to call the airline and reschedule their flights.

MH114 diverted to Yangon as well but it's now on the way to KTM after about 11 hours on the ground.

I wish most Asian carriers would adopt the likes of American/European carriers and issue a travel waiver whenever there's a major issue e.g. severe weather or IT outage like this. E.g. if you are traveling 19/7, you can opt for one free change in the same cabin, origin/destination within a time period (usually 2-7 days) with change fee and fare difference waived. But then again, if they can't manage their own booking via the website, it might be difficult this time.

The original news article was retracted but somehow made its way to the *A website. Odd.

Yes. EY, QR, TK, WY sends quite a fair bit of their passengers on MH (and on some routes, OD as well) for beyond KUL connections. That's why all of them can do at least 2x daily to KUL and there is more capacity to KUL than say SIN for those airlines.

Not really lol. Try looking at DEL, BOM, MEL, AKL, PER on-time performance. They don't even fly the same schedule anymore. Some days they just cancel and renumber a flight and some days they re-schedule a flight to make it looks like it's not delayed. e.g. MH129 to MEL on 15/7 was rescheduled to 1215 instead of the usual departure of 0920 and it's reflected in the GDS (so they don't get hit with a delay) but yet it was delayed to a 1302 departure. Flight was operated by 9M-MTW and it turned around from MH 157 (from JED) that arrived at 1137 (STA was 1115). MH129 a week ago (7/7) left KUL at 1630 and arrived MEL at 0142+1.

They don't "delay" a flight anymore. It appears that they are canceling the original flight (e.g. MH 52/66) and replace them with a new flight number (MH 54/64). It's quite messy now. They need to get their house in order or at least lease planes for their Haj operations. 332 showing up in places they shouldn't be, e.g. SYD, MEL, KIX, ADL etc.

Kota Damansara station (Kajang line) is about 2km from SZB as the crow flies. Problem is that 2km is almost all forest and would prefer to leave it untouched. The spur line can't be done to either the upcoming Shah Alam line or the existing Kelana/Kajang line without significant inconvenience (i.e. closing part of the line). Although might be good for the future (either Kelana or Kajang line get s a spur to SZB) and they can do higher frequencies around the city center (similar to current Ampang/Sri Petaling line with the split at Chan Sow Lin whereby Chan Sow Lin to Sentul receives higher frequency compared to the rest of the line. I have also never understood why MRTCorp never run higher train frequencies in the city center during off-peak, e.g. between Phileo Damansara / BU and Batu 11. Another alternative is to have a new but shorter line from Elmina, passing through SZB and then take over the undead PJD link alignment. Problem with that is government need to convince Tropicana residents it's a good idea to have a train tracks running pass their backyards and whoever the PJD link developer is drops their wishes for that highway. SZB was not part of the then government's plan to be a city airport. It was only in recent years they want to make it a city airport. There was excess capacity when KUL first opened and it was built to cater up to 100MM pax a year. Government at that time decided it's best to consolidate everything at KUL. Don't think that's possible. They use a different system and the KTM link merges back onto the KTM tracks instead of the LRT line. KL Sentral is still quite far away from Subang LRT station (easily 35-40 minutes) because it goes up north close to Ara Damansara, back south again to Kelana Jaya and before heading northeast towards KL Sentral.

Is MH trying to get the biggest bang for the buck with their interns? They are canceling flights and renumbering them instead of delaying flights nowadays. Can’t imagine the cancelation rate for those affected flights. e.g. tonight’s MH160 (to DOH) was canceled only to be renumbered as MH284 that was scheduled to depart an hour later (but it ended up departing 30 minutes past MH284 departure time of 22:00). The return MH161 remained as it is. MH 284 used the inbound MH165 for the turnaround.

May I know how did you come to this conclusion?

Joke. They haven't even signed anything yet. It's hearsay for now with regards to the 321 XLR. But knowing MH, it wouldn't be inconceivable that they might use the 320 XLR for say secondary cities in South/East Asia (e.g. ATQ, AMD, FUK), Australia e.g. DRW/CNS, or second daily flight to KIX/ICN/PEK/PVG. I always thought CX was the one vetoing their application. CX wants CA. oneworld is still quite loose with QF not exactly friends with a few members, CX is pretty much doing their own thing. I'd prefer if they invite a central Europe or Latin America partner instead. These are 2 huge holes that needed to be filled.

New routes announced for Summer 2025: KUL-DXB-LGW/MAN, KUL-BNE-CHC/WLG, KUL-GUM-HNL-LAX/SFO 😬 I hope if they do get the XLR/Neo, please configure it better than the Max. Will the 737Max fleet will be moved over to FY in the medium term or will MH operate both 320/737 should this materialize.

They are selling flights to DXB on their own metal.

I am curious why Batik Air Malaysia is still selling KUL-DXB tickets when they didn't get any slots for KUL-DXB this winter.

Is Firefly trying to be a full time charter? If they aren't getting new planes and they have pretty much maxed out their fleet, how do they fly to these far away destinations? I am curious if more routes are on the chopping block besides those in Borneo.

What's going on with MH's A333 fleet? It seems like the schedules are all messed up again. And now instead of delaying, they are canceling and assigning a new flight number for the replacement flight. e.g. MH54 to KIX is operating today and Friday morning (instead of Tuesday and Thursday night), so there'd be 2 KUL-KIX flights today and Friday. MH 64/86 is the new early morning flight to ICN (replacing MH66). MH7x (IIRC MH74) is one of the early morning daytime flights to NRT replacing MH88. 9M-MAC went tech at LHR a few days ago. I am curious how long management thinks this will hold with passengers.

I doubt that'd be the case. If they listen to FB group, we would have better IFE, better seats/OTP, free alcohol on all flights, espresso based coffee rather than Old Town and Nescafe Gold Blend on say KUL-LHR in J. Maybe they'll switch the 7M8 to PKX instead (which is just about equidistance with KUL-ATQ). CA is using their 7M8 on their PEK-KUL (which surprisingly shows an upgrade to 333 for winter).

Good news with interesting schedule. They are going to leave their aircraft RON at KUL (or I am curious if they are going to pair it with another Southern Indian city e.g. BLR/MAA). Not the biggest fan of India-MY redeye and this schedule sounds lovely. Malaysians are now eligible for 2 free (complimentary) e-visas to India until 30/6/2025, *not to be mistaken with visa-free/waiver*. Saves Malaysian pax $25USD per entry.

The PEN-KUL-PEN is timed for the KUL-NKG turnaround. FY2954 PEN1600 - 1700KUL 738 246 FY2955 KUL0700 - 0800PEN 738 357 FY3842 KUL1740 – 2315NKG 738 246 FY3843 NKG0015 – 0545KUL 738 357 Good luck turning around FY2954 to FY 3842 in 40 minutes. I have a feeling FY 3842/3843 will be delayed quite often. I assume crew will operate FY2954-3842. Not sure if they'd deadhead back or stay in Nanjing for 2-3 nights.