Keno Omar

This is what MH is charging for taxes and fuel surcharges for a return trip, in Malaysian Ringgit. HKG 259 NRT 573 DXB 590 IST 614 CPT 671 AMS 727 PER 749 CDG 749 SYD 792 LAX 879 LHR 976 If I recall correctly during my student days (1997-2003), tax etc for LHR used to be GBP40 or RM250-something for a return trip. Now it's a whopping RM976!!!

I think the best way to avoid web congestion (a la Air Asia sales) is to make phone booking at 1300883000 and make the payment/collection at any MAS town office or agent (in KL, i recommend KL Sentral MAS Office). I wouldn't want to risk making large amount of payment over the internet and getting "cannot display page" message once you click the submit payment details button. KLM is also having special offers ex-KUL, with very competitive fares to Europe and North America. Booking until Mar 31, travel from 26 Mar. http://www.klm.com/travel/my_en/special_of...ffers/index.htm

Some selected destinations, return fare inclusive of tax and surcharges... Hong Kong 299 x 2 + tax 259 = 857 Maldives 409 x 2 + tax 541 = 1359 Tokyo 669 X 2 + tax 573 = 1911 Perth 599 X 2 + tax 749 = 1947 Dubai 799 x 2 + tax 590 = 2188 Istanbul 842 x 2 + tax 614 = 2312 Sydney 799 x 2 + tax 792 = 2390 Paris 949 x 2 + tax 749 = 2647 Amsterdam 999 x 2 + tax 727 = 2725 Cape Town 1099 x 2 + tax 671 = 2869 London 999 x 2 + tax 976 = 2974 Los Angeles 1099 x 2 + tax 879 = 3077

The competition along the Kangaroo Route is very fierce, so having a stop like SYD-BNE-KUL and LHR-LGK-KUL may deter some passengers from choosing MAS when there's other alternatives around. MAS could have fiddle around with AKL to merge their BNE operations, rather than messing around with their flagship route LHR-KUL-SYD. Ever wonder why MAS still fly to numerous international destinations from BKI, or the fact that BKI now (or used to) host a number of foreign airlines like KE, KA, BI, AO, QF (charter), PR, FAT (Taiwan), Uniair (Taiwan) etc? KCH on the other hand never come close to that in the recent years, so if we are talking about MAS not "being fair" towards KCH/Sarawak, then how would you explain the lack of foreign airlines in KCH? Three reasons that put BKI at an advantage over KCH: 1. Tourism Sabah is heavily markated as a tourist destination especially for beach holidays. Huge number of Taiwanese, mainland Chinese, HKongers, Japanese, Koreans, Australians etc flock to the state every year. I don't intend to play down on Sarawak's tourism industry but let's face it, beach holiday is what most tourists seek more, compared to what Sarawak has largely to offer i.e. rainforest, caves, ethnic culture etc. Sarawak has more of a niche market rather than mass-tourism that we see in Sabah. 2. Economy Again, not intending to play down on Sarawak economic importance but in this aspect, Sabah gets an extra point too. BKI is close to the oil & gas industry of Borneo, which centres around MYY, Brunei, LBU and BKI, all of which has either Petronas or Shell presence (or both). Nearby LBU is also an international offshore financial centre (IOFC), and the logging industry of Sandakan is among Malaysia's largest (if not THE largest). 3. Location Geographically KCH is at a disadvantage (or advantage, depending how you see it) being located about half way between 2 of MAS hubs of KUL and BKI. For westbound flights (e.g. Europe), it makes more business sense to have all services to fly from KUL alone, as any flights originating from East Malaysia would have to bypass the Peninsular anyway. Similarly for eastbound flights (e.g. Japan), many routes will pass close to Sabah airspace which makes it an ideal hub for East Asian operations. An exception would be southbound flights to Australia, where KCH seem to have a slight advantage in terms of the flight path. But judging on the importance of Australia routes for MAS, i'm glad that now all Europe-KUL-Australia operations (except BNE/SYD) are all nonstops. I know KCH-PER has its fair share of traffic, but for the sake of hub operation in KUL and connectivity to the rest of MAS network, this route should not be revived. Let AK or JQ handle this if they think it's viable. Sorry to sound rather "anti-KCH", but I just don't think it makes much business sense for MAS to continue medium-to-longhaul flights from KCH.

"United Kingdom" was automatically added. My trick is to key in my city as "Shah Alam MALAYSIA" (in capital letters) so the country name would stand out since there was no option to select it at the website. The postman must have seen "United Kingdom" on the address but MALAYSIA looks more prominent.

Got mine through the post today

The good news is, DPS flight will go via KUL

Just don't get too excited with MH "cheap fares". Tax + surcharge for LHR now stands at a massive RM970 while SYD is RM790. Compare this with EK where they charge only RM79 to DXB while MH is a whopping RM590.

For the time being, AirAsia X will only be granted rights to destinations not served by MH (hence SHJ over DXB; STN over LHR). The govt had more or less the same stance when AK first flew internationally but we all saw how fast things changed. As for flights to southeastern Australia, does anyone know if Melbourne Avalon is capable of handling A333/B773? Since they can't fly to MEL, then AVV would be an alternative. Is there any (large) secondary airport for SYD & BNE?

Pieter, What's stopping MH from piggybacking on KLM's transatlantic services via AMS? Seems like an obvious solution for Malaysia's need to link with US East coast. It doesn't have to wait until Skyteam membership does it? Unless MH has a strategic codeshare partner, they'd have to serve loss-making but important routes themselves.

I've departed/landed in GVA 7 times, ZRH 4 times, BSL 1 time. I still prefer the simplicity of GVA any day

Ambience & design Best : KLIA Worst : LCCT (Makro look-alike) Ease of connecting flight Best : Dubai (all-in-one) Worst : Jeddah (RM50 taxi ride to connect between 2 terminals, must have visa) Ease of immigration Most efficient : Geneva Most fussy officers : Jeddah Slowest queue : London Heathrow (esp. morning) Access to downtown Fastest : Geneva (6 mins train to Cornavin) Slowest : London Stansted (45 mins train + 30 mins tube to West End) Airport activities (shopping, food, entertainment) Best : Changi Worst : KLIA (so expensive, so boring) OVERALL Verdict Best : Geneva Worst : Jeddah

I hope these F50 routes will be served from SZB. It's quite a backtrack to travel all the way down to KLIA for such a short hop, unless you're living in Nilai or Seremban...

I forsee any international expansion will be handled by Air Asia, not FAX. I suppose the only market segment that FAX may be able to handle on turbopropos is KK-Mindanao. Even so that could possibly be AK territory too (i.e. 737).

Does anyone know if this DJ/MH cooperation also include their trans-Tasman routes i.e. SYD/MEL/BNE-CHC, BNE-AKL and BNE-WLG? or is it just limited to Australia domestic?

What's the largest aircraft Kerteh can handle? Is it opened to private/VIP flights?

My guess would be... Australia : QF Connection via SYD/MEL to OOL, CNS, CBR, HBA, CHC, WLG. MH used to codeshare on Ansett services to most of these places. QF is already cooperating with Skyteam founder AF. South Africa : SA MH may terminate CPT/EZE to consolidate operation in JNB. Connection to CPT, DUR, HRE etc. Skyteam option in Africa would be Kenya Airways but there's no link between the two hubs. SA don't fly to EZE though, only GRU which MH may be interested. USA : NW/CO/DL CO has the most domestic connection from EWR while DL from LAX. I would have preferred MH to terminate EWR & ARN altogether and let CO do the job via AMS. NW can provide connection via NRT for transpacific services but the timings are not always ideal. China : CZ If we're looking into Skyteam-wise, I guess the most likely candidate is CZ via CAN. Europe : KL/AZ/BD + anymore? MH has agreement with KLM, and has recently signed with AZ. Possibly new cooperation with AF now?

http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BT/F...03.txt/Article/ http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.js...d65b00-3a2def37 "We are currently in discussions with other airlines to develop hub-and-spoke connecting network in Australia, South Africa, China, Europe, and US. We will be announcing some of these deals this year," Idris said. He was speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Aug 3 after MAS entered into its 23rd code sharing agreement with Gulf Air, the national carrier of Bahrain and Oman. Any insiders information as to which airlines these could be? How will all these work out in MAS's alliance plan?

That b*tch has blood on her hands over the war in Iraq & Afghanistan. War criminals don't deserve VIP treatment in Malaysia

Europe, China bla bla.... Australia... (all implying international) is just 60 (and declining fast). Including domestic destinations after Aug 1, it's 76. Codeshares don't really mean squat, imagine how many "destinations" would SQ fly to then. 100 destinations across 6 continents is a misleading marketing tagline.

MAS doesn't fly to over 100 international destinations. This 100 destinations include all domestic and rural routes; plus codeshare flights operated by Bmi, KLM, Uzbek, Air Mauritius etc which definitely do not see MAS aircrafts anyway.

MAS has quite a long history with BD whereby MAS was the 5th airline to codeshare with them back in 1994 (now there are 21 airlines that piggyback on BD). Comparing BD@LHR with KL@AMS, BD has the advantage of being hubbed at MAS' premier european station despite KLM having a larger UK/European network. With MAS immenent membership into Skyteam, this may all change in favour of KL@AMS but I suspect that BD would still have quite a role to play in terms of UK connections during post-Skyteam days: 18x weekly to LHR versus 7x weekly to AMS is quite a large gap (not counting KLM's KUL-AMS c/s). Despite all the advantages of KL@AMS, there is still a preference among many travelling Malaysians to transit at LHR (within UK, europe or transatlantic) as London is the single most popular destination/stopover in Europe among Malaysians. The way I see it, the arrangement at both LHR and AMS has its own pros and cons, so I personally don't see much issues for both codeshares to remain despite MAS's inclination towards Skyteam.

I suppose this one is big time coming, they are the only (miraculously) continental carrier still flying to Australia when all others have pulled out over the years. I suppose it's not very far-fetched to see BA one day leaving Australia altogether; it wasn't that many years ago that they served multiple OZ/NZ cities, followed by the rather surprising withdrawal of MEL only last year. Judging by BA's close cooperation with Oneworld partner QF's via SIN, I guess even BA's days are numbered. With OS leaving Australia, I can't see why KUL should be kept; the route can easily be covered by LH & TG. SIN may be a Star Alliance hub but don't count on it being safe either; SIN was introduced a few years after KUL and now remains at a mere 3x weekly.

What are the chances of FAX operating flights to Kerteh, Redang, Tioman and Pangkor? AK really should break Berjaya monopoly on the island routes. At RM500 rtn, the fares are pretty outrageous!

Bmi codeshare LHR-DUB was left out, MAS still codeshares on this route. Also noted that MAS has added Bmi codeshare to Aberdeen, and KLM codeshare to Bergen & Stavanger in Norway.