Craig

I believe it was 2019 that the then PH government introduced the departure levy after swapping GST for SST (because GST casts a wider net compared to SST and there was significant shortfall). This is supposed to mimic UK's APD. It's supposed to be based on the passenger's final destination (e.g. TG's KUL-BKK-HKG departure levy should be the same as KUL-HKG on MH/CX/AK) rather than the first international destination. I have seen fares where it was calculated based on the first international destination instead of the final even though it's a <24H transit at the ASEAN city.

Mavcom is taking a regressive step towards standardizing PSC at airports around Malaysia.. Mavcom is splitting KUL T1 and T2's PSC into 2 tiers again beginning 1 June 2024. KUL T1 will incur RM73 for all international flights where as KUL T2 + all other airports (except JHB) will incur RM50 for all flights (ASEAN or outside ASEAN will share the same PSC). Departure from JHB will incur RM16 for domestic and RM50 for international. It appears that MH will be the biggest loser here. Departure levy is charged based on first international destination (SQ, TG etc. will have lower departure levy compared to MH for say a KUL-LHR/HKG route) and PSC will be much higher for MH than AK/D7 ex-KUL. They should have grouped it as KUL (T1 & T2) and non-KUL. Out the door MH is already at a disadvantage of RM27 for all ex-KUL pax and RM13 for all transfer pax at KUL.

Oh you are right. DMK is getting axed. The BKK-PEN is not the most desirable flight schedule with a 00:50 arrival into PEN. DMK has SL and FD where as BKK has FY and TG.

FY applied for 3x weekly BKI-PVG and another 7x weekly PEN-BKK (making it double daily PEN-BKK). Will FY have enough 737s for this operation by May? It's going to get quite crowded for PEN-BKK with 2-3x FD, 1x TG, 1x SL, and 2x daily FY.

Some interesting route applications by Capital A Group. KUL-LBJ will be a great addition without having to transfer either in SUB/DPS/CGK. They also applied for KUL-BBI/CCJ/GAU/BPN. Is Kerala the hot destination in India? TRV, COK and soon CCJ!

Someone at MAHB should probably have a few counters set aside for passengers whose gates are closing. They have this in most airports (although it's mostly for security and not immigration). Don't need to use a ground staff yelling out flights but a TV screen with eligible flights asking them to go to this special lane. Something doesn't add up if he was indeed flying J to SIN. If he was in J, he should have just used the J immigration instead of being sent back to Y.

Not going to add a click to his videos but I assume he's a seasoned traveler and has status. I've only used this service once a while back so I am not sure if they still offer it. Apparently there's an immigration officer at the MH Business Suite (for OWE) check-in. The officer can perform your exit immigration there and you will be escorted through immigration bypassing the queues and escorted through the customs X-Ray too and the agent will usually drop you off at the regional lounge or train station. And if I am know I am late but not too late, I will not be taking videos or photos. And in this situation, most will ask "I am really sorry but I have a flight that leaves in xx minutes. Would you be so kind to let me squeeze through". Not the most desirable favor but most of the time, people will just ask you to go ahead because they themselves have been in this situation before. But the good news is MH is on time 🤣 (I find airlines to be on time when I don't want them to and delayed when I want them to be on time). Maybe MH can introduce this "flat tire policy" as a goodwill gesture like most American carriers do. If a pax arrives at a check-in desk within 2 hours of desk closure, put them on standby for the next available flight (at least on domestic/regional flights where there are multiple flights a day). American carriers do it for free, but I would imagine pax wouldn't mind paying say RM100/pax if they can get onto their next flight without buying a whole new ticket.

KUL immigration can be horrible during certain time, especially between 1-9PM for arrivals. I arrived the other day around 8AM and it looked like a breeze, maybe around 10-15 minutes or so for non e-gates eligible users. I was really surprised since I thought that was a peak arrival from IST/ME/India and ANZ. Departures looked terrible on a weekday around 5PM when I was leaving and I was shocked because I haven't seen departures queue that long ever.

I don't believe QR has such restrictions in any of their lounges but doesn't mean they can't start. There are quite a few MH J pax at their SIN/BKK lounge as it is, but of course opening one at KUL would mean much more MH J pax. It appears that MAHB wants the lounge revenue to themselves now so there are no individual airline lounges. Maybe that's why PPL have to move to the main concourse instead of the C gates where most of their pax will depart from.

Highly doubt it. I think MAHB didn't renew the lease for all individual airline lounges except for MH understandably. When KUL opened in 1998, there was supposed to be a joint QF-BA lounge. Not too sure if it ever opened tho. A more likelier outcome is a Star Alliance lounge since Star has quite a big presence at KUL. If any oneworld individual airline lounge were to (re)open, it'd be CX. Would love a QR lounge but that means MH will have to pay QR tons of money when everyone flying J is going to their lounge 🤣

That is true. I can live with having a neighbor but I detest a cubby hole. TK 777s are perfect for sleeping, especially for TK 60/61 schedule. Both flights require pax to sleep to avoid jet lag (maybe a bit less on TK60). I know a lot of people sing praises on SQ seats but the non-bulkhead seats are horrible for anyone >175cm. The cubby hole for your feet is neither here nor there and I have to arch my back when I sleep. MH 744 oh wow. Haven't been on that in a while. Those were pretty bad. I guess the closest seat I've sat on that resembles MH 744/772 are TG's 772 which they still use occasionally for KUL. Back then it was TG 772/744, MH 772/744 and SQ's Skybed on their 77E/744. All variations of one another.

If construction hasn't even started (or worse, plans hasn't even finalized), I'd say 2030

Chinese carriers seems to be increasing their flights quite a bit to Malaysia thanks to the bilateral visa waiver policy. But some are short-lived, like MU's PKX-KUL. India has a huge domestic market, several order of magnitudes larger than MH's. MH could have been huge like TK/QR but it might be a bit too late now and MH also lack of funding to do huge orders. We shall see if TG becomes successful with their huge 787 order. AI has a few oddball routes, like ATQ-BHX, AMD-LGW, BLR-SFO (no brainer for this route tho). MH traded 4 weekly LHR slots for more India rights last time. So who knows what MH/AK Group can give. As of 9 Feb 24, there are no unallocated seats for BOM, BLR, MAA, HYD and only 145 seats to CCU and 17 seats to DEL left per week per current ATR agreement (last updated 2012). Malaysian carriers have to fly to non-metropolitan cities if they want more India traffic. Frequency and capacity (no larger than a 744, whatever that means) aren't restricted outside of those 6 cities.

MH offers free wifi but it's 50/50 whether you can use it. BA offers paid wifi but their yin yang seats are bad. I prefer my TK 333/77W seats without cubby holes with slow wifi Oh and I flew MTE, MHConnect sticker was there, but broken. Very on point for MH

BKK is mostly O&D, a leisure destination, and very seasonal (traffic is soft between April and October). BA is also competing with 2x TG and 1x BR daily ex-LHR plus dozens more 1-stop connection. And unlike KUL, BKK is the end-point for BA (maybe a handful of connections on PG but that's about it). Malaysia loves paperwork and bureaucracy. Things are planned out by an intern and makes it unnecessarily complicated with box flow chart like they learned in uni I am curious if they plan to use screens instead of printed A4 paper to inform transit pax their connecting gates (like FRA/MUC where passengers can look at specific connecting gates from the flight once they leave the jet bridge). Or maybe update the MH app to accommodate push notification for boarding or gate for connections.

Any idea of the timeline for construction / completion? That's the beauty of SZB. You can be dropped off as late as 30 mins prior to departure and you'll be fine (you should be fine for MH domestic at KUL T1 too provided you've checked in online. Cutting it very close and it depends how high your A/B gates are and how long security is).

So QF SYD-KUL and LH FRA-KUL later this year plus IB MAD-KUL and AY HEL-KUL in 2025? 😬

BA just announced they will return to KUL and BKK. BA will return to KUL beginning 10NOV24. I like how they just insert this pretty big news on a small paragraph in their larger complimentary onboard messaging news release. Flight schedule for BA33/34: BA33 LHR2045 - 1730+1KUL 789 D BA34 KUL2315 - 0520+1LHR 789 D Interesting that they’ll resume KUL during winter (the softest demand for travel between UK and Malaysia is between November and late February, minus Xmas/NY). Good to hear nonetheless!

I thought VJ wasn't doing too well financially? It's no Bamboo Airways but that's provisional order is as big as MH's 339 fleet.

Who knew? SAS used to have 1 weekly flight to KUL on DC8 in 1974. Routing was CPH-FRA-DEL-BKK-KUL-SIN.

I always thought there were 3 options during Brahims before Covid or is my memory failing me? Lounge offering has improved a lot compared to 2019 (taste + quality). My only pet peeve are flies and the fly spinner fan around the buffet. It does make it look cheap and kinda gross.

They could be flying 100% Malaysian sustainable oil palm oil or fossil fuel. All I care about is what I am flying on

I said it helps, SQ doesn't depend mostly on domestic market. The huge connection possibility, bank/corporate contracts, JV with a number *A carriers plus other airlines like AF/KL for beyond connections, and a wealthy home base helps. There is substantial traffic to EU between SV, QR, TK, EY, EK (I am curious if these airlines are more successful ex-MY due to its halal offering on board). And then you have other Southeast/East Asian airlines that connects pax between MY and EU too (not too surprising to see CX, CI, BR, and even CN carriers sell those tickets). MH however can only connect pax to/from DOH or LHR, most of which require 2 stops if they go beyond KUL (and MH fares are quite exorbitant once a partner is involved even though it's a metal-neutral joint business/venture like JAL-MH).

To be fair, the current 788s will be 15 years old when the first 789 arrives (according to the article). 9M-MTA is only 12 years old but the A339s are expected to arrive later this year. I am more curious if MH will announce any orders at the SG airshow. They aren't known for announcing orders at an airshow but the narrow body replacement and additionally wide bodies are supposed to be announced Q1 2024.

SQ also has huge bank/corporate contracts in addition to connecting a lot of pax around the world. Also helps when their home base is one of the wealthiest in the world. And it doesn't really help when the Malaysian government doesn't see forests for the trees. Do you think they will want to pay a very capitalist but popular singer RM10 million per show for exclusive rights to host a concert in ASEAN? I don't think ordinary taxpayers will agree to this as well. It's the same for MH. Government and your everyday taxpayers aren't willing to pump in money to buy brand new planes or install lie-flats on the 7M8.