Craig

I saw the upgauge of KTM and HKG - I am more surprised about HKG. They aren't open and I can only imagine they are using the 333 for cargo capacity rather than for passenger (CX on the other hand is flying 2x daily 359/35K but only 2 pax service a week, the other 12 are P2C flights). DPS ticket prices are through the roof. I just checked my old DPS-KUL e-ticket back in 2018. I bought a business ticket DPS-KUL roundtrip for about RM1000. Nowadays, you can't even fly one way KUL-DPS on MH with that price if you don't book it more than a month in advance (slightly cheaper ex-DPS but still, not cheap). #costoflivingcrisis You mean we are the only major SE Asian country (ID, TH, MY, SG, PR, VN) that failed to get a daytime HND slot was due to our govt's weak slot negotiation? Even countries like Turkey, Finland, and Denmark/Sweden all managed to get a daytime slot at HND. Well with the ongoing Russia sanctions, one would hope that they will release the 2 pair of slots currently held by Russian carriers (and another 2 from Japanese carriers for Russia bound flights) to other airlines once JP opens up (like what Heathrow did with Russian carrier slots). Not too sure if Malaysia is high up on the list since MY market is still quite small for JP carriers relative to other SE Asia countries and Switzerland is fighting hard for a slot too. I don't keep track of MH's current wide body fleet (is it 15 A333, 6 A332, and 6 A359?) and if they need 33 wide body by Q4 2024, don't they need order more wide body instead of a 1 to 1 replacement?

Thank you again for the info! Honestly, I don't think the 738 are that bad other than the legroom in Y seats (which is pretty similar compared to other airlines). You mentioned that they want to retrofit the 737 with new seats and to replace IFE with WiFi - will they be adding another row of Y (I assume the new seats will be slimline?)? As far as new destinations/expansion go, are they mostly around the region (<5-6 hours flight) or are they looking at resuming some European/ME destinations at some point (e.g. CDG/AMS/IST/DXB). Is there a reason why MH doesn't really do seasonal flights other than Haj (e.g. seasonal summer flights to Europe since Europe is the place to be and to lose your bags/patience this summer?)

Any rumors of flat beds in the 737max? Are they planning to use it for long thin routes (e.g. secondary cities in AU/CN/IN/KR/JP) or just a replacement for the current NG?

You probably guessed it right. It's strictly cargo only. Doesn't help when Australia's ETAs are severely delayed for Malaysians making many people cancel their plans to Australia.

Thank you for your input. It's nice to see that there are at least some plans to modernize the fleet. I think no administration will reduce Islamic affairs budget no matter how strong they are. It will be a very low hanging fruit for any opposition party to capitalize on to try and win the next election. I guess that's the price we pay when we mix religion with state affairs.

It also appears that MH 160/161 (KUL-DOH) will take over QR848/849 at least until June? QR848/849 has been removed from schedule once MH starts its DOH flights.

MH just announced its HND schedule (only twice weekly for now). Beginning 14AUG22: MH36 1145KUL - HND2235 37 333 MH37 0025HND - KUL0615 14 333

It was whoever who distributed the slots last time (can't recall if MAVCOM was set up then). 3x weekly to D7 and MH and 1x weekly to Transmile (for cargo) so they are trying to be fair to everyone but in the end it killed MH and Transmile because these 3/1 weekly flights probably not feasible to them. MH went with BKI-HND 3x B738 which obviously didn't work out for them. JL and NH announced that they will resume daily NRT-KUL beginning 1 July. NH's HND-KUL remain suspended at the moment.

Hello and welcome back to air travel :) Has anyone seen the seat map for MH 160/161 (KUL-DOH-KUL)? It's a very interesting configuration. BTW, MH also received approval from MAVCOM for 7x weekly KUL-HND flights beginning June. Maybe I am out of the loop for a very long time, but did D7 gave up their rights or did Japan grant more slots to Malaysia?

Most airlines are using regular flight numbers. You'll see MH 333/332s busy flying to CAN, CGK, SGN, BKI, BKK, KCH, SYD, MEL, PER, HAN, MNL, PVG, NRT etc. Most of these are P2C flights (no revenue pax) but using regular flight number and almost regular schedule. And you'll see KA, CI, BR, CZ all flying into KUL/PEN daily too (sometimes 2 times a day on CI/BR on 77W) but most of these are P2C flights as well. You can't buy revenue seats even if you wanted to.

Is this BBJ owned/leased by a Malaysian? Seems to be spotted around SZB/LGK quite often based on historical photos (and very odd that a repatriation flight landed in SZB).

I didn't know AK interline with other carriers or OD flies nonstop to AU (except PER)/NZ/JP/KR. FFS, they don't even fly to Shanghai, Beijing with a miserable daily to HKG. Sure they have a lot of flights to the Indian subcontinent, but don't forget that OD is partially owned by an Indonesian company. You want foreign airlines to resume flying to KUL? You need MH. Who else is going to transfer pax from KUL to other cities in Malaysia and beyond? OD can't fulfill that role. AK obviously can't. And who is going to fly cargo between East and West Malaysia (and also regionally)? Why do you think MH is flying a daily A333 to HKG now even though both countries has sealed off borders to non-residents? Could never think of a better time to start an airline tbh I'd like you to show me OD's profit too

Not very. Quite surprising. A few A330s and 737s here and there for MH (about 3 days ago). Nothing compared to say HKG where taxiways are shut down to accommodate parked planes (even gates are used for parked planes in the main concourse). But then again, MH has a relatively small fleet to begin with. I saw MH1 baggage claim 3 days ago - I'd say there are quite a lot of people waiting for bags (relatively speaking). BA canceled their flights (until 31 March) so I'd assume they might have put them on MH or they rebook themselves to MH. There are a lot of go-show but also a lot of no shows. ME3 looks quite empty tho. Problem with UK is that their policy changes every few days and NHS won't be able to deal with the surge of patients if it gets worse.

Have you read about IDK, Abu Ghraib and how European countries disagreed with US? Death penalty in the US? To be fair, they also reported on HK protesters setting fire on someone disagreeing with them along with other news (vandalism, throwing things on the rail tracks etc.). They reported about the new hospital that Wuhan is building to treat 2,000+ patients and made a comment that's a feat that's almost impossible in any western country (getting the Environmental Impact Report will probably take a few months/years). Do you see any media reporting any job well done for other countries? I am not familiar with how the Chinese government elect their officials, but how exactly do an ordinary Chinese citizen remove the CCP or at least people in power? Should non-citizens not care about Trump, Johnson, Morrison, Duterte, Bolsonaro etc.? Should BBC not report about US or CNN/Fox not report about Johnson? I am sure Aussies and Western media are praising Morrison for taking a holiday in Hawaii whilst the country is in its worst fire disaster There's freedom of speech but you can't cause mass panic (in the US, the example always given is "shouting fire in a crowded cinema"). MY and SG isn't exactly the beacon for freedom of speech, especially SG. Did the Western media criticize SG/MY for jailing political dissidents? You bet. But do I think MY has better freedom of speech than say 3 years ago? Absolutely.

I am waiting for Jamal Khashoggi's alternate narrative

Western media is at least more independent than state-sponsored media. Seattle Times broke a few stories about the 737 MAX (biggest employer in their own backyard and US' largest exporter), left-leaning media constantly dissing #45, WaPo who broke the Watergate scandal etc. Will CGTN or Global Times etc. expose China's or CCP"s wrongdoing (if any)? Most media are biased against other countries (if you think they are *only* out to cripple the CCP, you are wrong). You can compare how BBC/Guardian and say CNN/MSNBC reported Harry Dunn's case or social issues in the US. Or how Straits Times and The Star reported on MY/SG maritime boundary issues.

NH announced a huge expansion due to the new HND slots (new flights to ARN, IST, MXP as well as increased frequencies to SFO, SYD etc.) - they probably need the planes from somewhere and SE Asia gets the brunt of it. Having that said, KUL capacity adjustments lasts for only 2 months unlike other stations where their NRT flights are halved for entire summer. HND's slots are use it or lose it. NRT on the other hand still have slots available. HND is also taking over some transfer pax (e.g. even with the limited KUL flights, MY-US pax are still able to transfer at HND to LAX, JFK, SFO - which probably accounts for more than 50% of the MY-US market on NH).

You are comparing apples and oranges. MH's hub is KUL and they provide nonstop service to places where most ex-KUL and MH pax want to go. That is the price for convenience. You'd find the same thing for SQ fares ex-SIN, CX fares ex-HKG, LH fares ex-FRA/MUC, AA fares ex-DFW etc. You should compare ex-MNL fares on SQ and PR. You'd be surprised that SQ is much cheaper than PR! If you want cheap MH flights, perhaps try flying from BKK/SIN/TPE?

IT meltdown didn't really prevent people from traveling - a lot were inconvenienced for sure.

Or maybe they have but they can't do it with only 2 additional 359s. E.g. MH identified AMS/CDG etc. as a high yielding route and it will require 2 359s to operate a daily flight - what happens if a 359 goes tech or goes in for regularly scheduled maintenance? Cancel flights for a few days/weeks? As it is, some KIX/NRT flights are operated by 333 when the 359 goes in for maintenance. And from what I hear, the Japanese routes have pretty strong premium demand (hence the 359 is used instead of the 333)

That's what I thought, but SOC-KUL arrives around 02:45. Trains aren't running (not too sure if buses are) and they probably have to wait for another 3-4 hours before things start moving both at KUL and KL city centre. The 02:45 arrival won't connect to either EK/QR 02:00-ish departures either.

MH up gauged their Surakarta flights to A330 according to Airlineroute. Anybody knows why this twice weekly, almost zero connections at KUL for the return sector (connection ~6 hours for non-ASEAN flights, longer for flights to JED/MED) warrants an A330?

Not going to start a new topic for this but I just noticed that MH updated its app icon (at least for iOS). Looks like a winter wonderland now. As with others, I like their new marketing company. New winter app icon:

A quick followup on QR's planned PEN/LGK increase - it will begin 03AUG20 according to airlineroute. I am curious how big (or rather, small) this market is. IIRC, the biggest MY-South America market is to/from Brazil (but even that is tiny). Yay! Return of morning weekend services ex-SIN. Too late for Space beds 🤣

Qatar announced today that PEN/LGK will be increased from 5x to 7x weekly for 2020 (no specified date given but it will still operate as DOH-PEN-LGK vv). That's a decent increase from 3 weekly services when they started in Feb. 2018 to daily in 2020.