H C Chai

Oh yes! I still remember that. I have some copies of MAS timetable in 1989/1990 - back then they were using so many types of equipment between KUL (Subang) and KCH : DC10, A300, B732, B734, F27, F50 and even A310 very briefly. Some flights were routed via SIN. The F27/F50 flights were non-stop and took almost 3 hours. Those were the days...

I too hope that the seat pitch will remain as 33"/34"... Any chance that MH will be putting the A333 on some domestic route (e.g. KUL-KCH or BKI) for crew training etc. before the KUL-BNE start on 15 May?

Interesting... does the software show the availability of redemption seats for Star Alliance / One World too (e.g. booking class I, X) ?

Well spotted... if that is the case, it is not as bad as I thought. I am not sure how Business Class passengers will be treated, but that is for Business Class passengers to worry about I guess FFP of MH partners (such as AF/KLM's Flying Blue) will not be getting miles on FY operated flights, just like Star Alliance FFP not getting anything on Silkair's flight...

It all depends on how you see things... for example, most of the time ex-LHR fares to KUL and other major ASEAN / Malaysia cities are the same. In this case you can say that the Intra ASEAN /Domestic sectors are free. On the other hand, some people may get a little disappointed ending up on a LCC on the last sector, especially that MH has been advertising itself as a five star carrier... I guess we just have to be a little more careful when choosing flights next time. For me, I will probably be happier being served a snackbox on Smarties seats than paying RM for a drink on a new 738...

Nothing new here, just want to flag up that Malaysia Airlines will be code sharing with Firefly jet service into and out of KLIA (i.e. KUL - BKI , KUL - KCH). Not much to worry about if one is doing point to point. However, for a route like LHR-KUL-KCH, one might end up with FY on the KUL-KCH sector without choosing the flight carefully, especially that there is no fare difference between MAS and FY operated flights. Below is the flight selection as shown on opodo.co.uk. Can you spot the flight operated by Firefly? You get more details of the flights once you have made the selection, but it doesn't really tell you much..... Hmm, Broome Airlines?

Wow, some really interesting achievements there... especially Keno and Waiping, congratulations to both!! I didn't have any new year resolution for 2010. As far as travel goes, good old mother nature has not been kind to me and she has succeeded in messing up half of my travel plan: My trip to Australia was delayed by a week due to the volcanic ash cloud, my week long holiday in Milan & Verona coincided with an awful heat wave and finally my year end trip to Kathmandu in Nepal and Koh Samui in Thailand was cancelled due to the snow storm and an incompetent airport operator. Interesting, my trip to Sana'a, Yemen, which I feared would go haywire actually went on very smoothly Emirates, A380 and Sana'a, Yemen For 2011, my resolution is to replan my trip to Kathmandu in Nepal and then spend a few days on a beach in South East Asia. Any suggestions on the beach resorts will be most welcomed. My friends were thinking about Bali but I would prefer somewhere less touristy ...

It shouldn't be a problem, especially that you are flying with the same airline. However you need to bear in mind the risk of booking flights separately - if you miss the SIN-MEL flight due to delay/cancellation on KUL-SIN sector, the airline is not responsible for putting you on the next available flight. If your layover is less than 24hrs in SIN and you manage to check through the checked luggage, you can request a refund on SIN airport tax. Not guaranteed but worth a try... This was mentioned in SQTalk a while ago. http://www.sqtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8314 See #7.

Has anyone here flown BI 777? Based on a A.net TR, it looks like BI has made very little changes to the interior and both J/Y are looking a little tired. Anyway, here are a few more really nice promotional photos I found from the BI's Facebook site. Economy Class Business Class All photos copyright to Facebook Royal Brunei London

I guess sooner or later MAS is going to transfer some of their flights to Firefly ... Don't think I will be too pleased if my KUL-KCH-KUL this December will be "code-sharing and operated by" Firefly X,Firefly Z or whatever they want to call it... Good news for those who are waiting for cheap tix though!

Hi Riza The RM25 shown on your booking is the so-called "airport fee" introduced "secretly" by AirAsia a while ago. I came across this few months ago while browsing their fee schedule. According to the schedule, BWN airport fee is B$8. http://www.airasia.c...eeschedule.html The additional airport fee does not apply to BWN only. Take SIN for example, if you book SIN-KUL one way, the airport tax and charges are S$31. There is no breakdown but we know that SIN airport tax and charges are S$28. The additional S$3 goes to the "airport fee". Not sure why AirAsia is doing this, but in all fairness to them, the airport fee is included in their all-in fare. It's just that they are calculated as a tax separated from the base fare. It can become confusing when airport tax is collected separately at check in, like BWN.

Thanks for sharing your experience Ikman

Hi all Sorry to ask some daft questions here... I will be flying with Firefly (yeah!) for the first time this coming December, on Koh Samui (USM) - Subang (SZB). The booking was made about a month ago. I have been trying to look for some information particularly on inflight service and on time performance but not having much luck. Even Firefly's own website does not provide a great deal of information. Would be grateful if anyone can share their experience here, especially on the following: How are they doing with on-time performance. I tried on flightstats.com for USM-SZB but nothing came up Does flight retiming occur often, e.g. flight is canceled due to poor load and passengers are transferred to the next available flight, either later during the day or the day after Do they serve only muffin and a drink on all routes, including USM-SZB which has a flight time of 2hrs? Do they also provide buy on board service like other LCC's? Many Thanks in advance

Thanks for the info Naim! Thinking about getting KUL-STN-KUL for my parents but the cheapest I could find is RM1,700 return (taxes, meals and 20kg checked luggage included). This is made up of RM600 for KUL-STN and RM1,100 for STN-KUL (UK tax is an unbelievable RM500 ) I also found out I can actually fly MH for RM1,075 on IST-KUL, so now I am thinking about taking them to Istanbul for a few days before flying home.

I don't know which cabin class you will be flying (assuming economy?) but I share the same view with Jani - the seat width on Emirates 777 is far too tight for me. However, that is not to say it will bother you too. A friend of mine actually finds EK 77W to be a lot more comfortable than MAS 744. I can't comment on Qatar as I have not flown with them. Most of my friends who tried them said they are better than Emirates except the transit at Doha Airport. I guess on a business trip the flight timing will be a major decision making factor? Emirates does offer more flights than Qatar ex-KUL with minimum connection time at Dubai to other Gulf destinations. This will obviously make them more attractive than Qatar. As for me, I would take Qatar as long as the timing is not too inconvinient and I don't have to spend too much time at Doha Airport. I would trade a few hundred tv channels over an extra 2" seat width anytime!

Impressive list, Azizul! I didn't know that there are so many airlines doing the BKK-HKG route! Just to add: For KUL-BKK-KUL, Lufthansa frequency should be 4 weekly and Royal Jordanian 3 weekly For KUL-HKT-KUL, Qatar Airways frequency will increase from 6 weekly to 7 weekly effective 1 November 2010.

MH have been promoting themselves as the World's Five Star Value Carrier (FSVC) for a while now. So are they going to drop the V and called themselves FSC instead? I need to do a KUL-KCH return in late December. Just checked their fare - it is almost RM700. Luckily there is Airasia.

Good point... looking at the surcharges for KCH - BWN - BKI & vv, they are made up of RM192 fuel surcharge (US$60) and RM76 taxes. The taxes consist of 1x KCH departure tax (RM26), 1x BKI departure tax (RM26) and 2x BWN departure tax (B$5 x 2 = B$10 or RM24). Makes little sense since passengers are not required to pay airport tax at for transit in BWN.

This may seem bizarre, but it is true! Flights between the three Malaysian cities served by Royal Brunei - Kota Kinabalu, Kuala Lumpur and Kuching, are now bookable via the airline's website. These routes may have been bookable some time ago, but I am pretty sure it is only until recently that Royal Brunei has started promoting them on their Malaysian site. http://www.bruneiair.com/malaysia/ At first glace, their fares seem to be unbelievably low for a non-LCC. A dummy booking proved that these fares are in fact too good to be true - they are shown exclusive of taxes and surcharges. BKI - KCH return, for example, advertised as RM90 return is in fact close to RM350 all inclusive. With such fare and lousy frequency/timing (some flights have long layover and may include a night stop at BWN), I don't think neither MH or AK will feel threatened. Nevertheless, it is interesting to know that we now have a "third" option of flying between KUL, BKI and KCH. Any takers? I wonder if one needs a passport in order to perform these flights.

As some of you may have already known, Royal Brunei has finally updated its website to reflect their "new" Business and Economy Class products on the leased B777-200ER. However, it looks like they have provided some conflicting information on economy class seat pitch : 32" on product information page, 33" on the fleet information page and 34" on the seat map.

Hmm, is this thread is way out of topic, or just me being lack of imagination?! I couldn't really relate sweet and spicy kacang to the paperless trail by SQ and new pillows on MH 734.

Congratulations! You should do one of each for KUL-BKK return and do a TR to compare their products and services.

Great news! I hope they will introduce KCH-BWN, perhaps codesharing with Royal Brunei to complement their 2x weekly service... Brunei, Southern Philippines and Kalimantan make sense... but Irian Jaya? on an ATR?

Sorry to hear about your experience with KLM, KC. Hope you have now arrived safely in SIN. To be honest I was quite surprised too that SQ took the intiative to phone me up. The flight I was booked on also turns out to be the SQ's first Singapore-bound flight from Heathrow since the reopening of UK airspace.

Finally we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.... but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed! Singapore Airlines phoned me up just after 4pm, approx 30 minutes after the above statement is released. They managed to rebook me into a Wednesday night departure, connecting me to the Singapore - Brisbane flight I was originally booked on under the same itinerary. As I have given up my outbound stopover in Singapore, I have changed the dates for BNE-SIN allowing me to make a brief stopover in Singapore on the way back to London. All these are done in less than 5 minutes. Pretty impressive I would say!