Keno Omar

If MAS were to open up a route to Miami they have to nearly entirely on Swedish & other Scandinavian passengers and not those originating from KUL. A route linking KUL & MIA does sound rather far-fetched at first, but if the service could fill enough passengers between ARN & MIA, it may just make good business sense as this will provide the only scheduled service between Scandinavia & Florida. My crystal ball says... ain't gonna happen.

MH ceased to serve MEX in early 1997, not 1998.

Exactly my point when I started this thread. When is the govt going to realize that they cannot have it both ways i.e. (1) to protect the interest of domestic passengers (2) making big bucks to compete internationally. It may have worked it the past but unfortunately things have changed and MAS have to adopt to the market. Besides having a separate domestic franchise operator, is there any other way to free MAS from their domestic burden?

Apparently that planned new scheduled service to Guilin & Shenzhen for this Nov/Dec have been put on hold indefinitely, along with the proposed new Indian cities .

Economics is hardly my strongest point being a science man myself, so please bear with me. We always hear statements from the govt that they're not happy with MAS financial performance when compared to other (much) more successful airlines like SQ or CX. At the same time, we also often hear that MAS should not concentrate solely on making profits because it also has national duty to domestic travelers, which is true considering the govt has a fair stake in the company. MAS cannot really move forward in this volatile industry as long as there's this conflict of interest. Would it be a good idea for MAS to have a separate subsidiary for its domestic operation? Routes like KUL-IPH, KUL-KUA and many many intra-Borneo flights are not really doing MAS any good financially but they have to be served in the name of public duty. Other domestic routes, both intra-Peninsular and between KL/Borneo are bound by fare control by the government e.g. the maximum MAS can charge for KUL-BKI is around RM550 one-way regardless of high demand. On the other hand, international sectors like KUL-LHR's full Y fare can go as low as RM2500 or as high as RM8000 or more depending on demand and when the ticket is purchased. Looking at other airlines' examples, SQ has Silkair for its low-yield regional destinations, e.g. CGK and DPS are served by SQ while Medan is handled by MI. Shortly Surabaya will be handed over from SQ because it makes more business sense for MI to operate it. SilkAir is not just about narrow-body subsidary of SQ, they have a different business model to cater for these regional markets (they're not even in Star Alliance). British Airways also has its own franchises and subsidaries to serve different market segments like BA Citiexpress, GB Airways, BMed, SunAir and Comair. Logan Air, a BA franchise is probably a good example if we want to compare it with MAS. The airline, which fly full BA colours serve domestic routes within Scotland not just from the major airports like GLA, EDI, ABZ or INV but also smaller airports and remote airstrips in the highlands and the islands of Orkneys and Shetlands (the latter is actually closer to Norway than Glasgow). In a way this is UK's version of MAS Rural Air Service which are there not really to make money but more of a service to the community. This allows BA (mainline) to concentrate on its money-making business strategy abroad without having to worry too much about their "patriotic duty". Having different subsidaries for different market segments would give more flexibility in an airline's operation. As it stands now, MAS has to live by the rule dictated by the govt but at the same time have to adapt to challenges of international market. More than often this two does not go well together. This coming from somebody who has no economics nor accountancy background, but wouldn't it be better to split MAS domestic from its international operations? The domestic arm, being seperate from the parent company, can follow whichever strict guidelines that are imposed by the government while the mainline (international) entity should be set free from its domestic operation burden in order to compete fairly with its competitors. How the domestic subsidary should look like? Probably no visible change at all to the traveling public, it's all about how the management and financial aspects of things are handled, i.e. a split between international and domestic. There's no need to hand over not-so-profitable route like AOR or TGG to Air Asia, MAS has done a tremendously good job for these sectors so I don't see why they should withdraw. MAS should continue to serve all existing domestic routes, but on a new business model. Comments please.

MH never flew to CHC on their own but briefly had a codeshare agreement with Ansett NZ on AKL-CHC. MH had similar agreement with Ansett AU via SYD to OOL, HBA, CBR & CNS.

Even 737s not allowed to land at LCY let alone 747 or 777 LGW may be slightly further from London compared to LHR but it's actually cheaper to get there. Gatwick Express is £12 single versus Heathrow Express £14. The same goes for coach, LGW is £6.50 single versus LHR £10 from Victoria. The only downside to LGW is that it takes an extra 30-45 mins to get there, and it hasn't got an underground connection.

SQ flies 3x daily, the timings are almost the same as MH1/MH3/MH7. CX also flies 3x daily, but the timings are better with 2x overnight flights in both directions, compared to MH/SQ with 1x overnight flight each on westbound & eastbound. Overnight flights are more popular with passengers for a couple of reasons : (1) for westbound they don't lose a day (2) business travellers get to spend a full day before flying (3) many people find it easier to sleep.

"744" denotes the newly furbished aircraft. What exactly does MH7XXX series represent? Seasonal scheduled?

Getting other Skyteam members involved in MH/VS partnership sounds complicated, especially if LGW-KUL is operated by VS because this would involve third party airlines (unless both MH/VS are also in Skyteam). If transatlantic connection on Skyteam that MH is after, then AMS would be the best bet. Even now there are plenty of 1-stop connection opportunities via AMS to most major cities in North America. AMS has the advantage over LGW in terms of the number of destinations served, this afterall is the home base of KLM and hosts a huge number of US-based Skyteam carriers. KUL-JFK for example, is 1-stop connection eastbound but 2-stops westbound. This can be fixed with 1-stop for both legs by minor re-scheduling on either KUL-AMS or AMS-JFK. Taking VS example of operating KUL-LGW, any inconvenient connections cannot be easily fixed because US Skyteam carriers only deal with MH (assuming MH is in Skyteam) and not with MH's partner (in this case, VS). It would be interesting to see if MH would someday consider flying to LGW to complement their LHR services. I don't see why it wouldn't work, but MH should at least try to push for a daily 3rd LHR flight before venturing into LGW.

From my 1996 Pelangi Air timetable booklet, 9P served the following sectors :- Domestic routes SZB-PEN SZB-IPH-LGK SZB-TGG SZB-KTE SZB-JHB SZB-TOD SZB-Pangkor PEN-TGG KUA-TOD IPH-MKZ International routes SZB-PEN-Banda Aceh SZB-IPH-Phuket SZB-IPH-Medan SZB-JHB-Palembang SZB-JHB-Padang SZB-Pekanbaru SZB-MKZ-Pekanbaru SZB-MKZ-Medan MKZ-SIN (Changi) TOD-XSP (Seletar) Couple of years before that they also flew to Taman Negara & AOR. Before Pangkor Island airstrip was opened, they flew to Sitiawan on the mainland.

then in the same article... Sounds like the all-too-familiar bad reporting when it comes to aviation. "Keen on flying to KUL but we have issues" and "starting in 2006" just doesn't add up . They should send one of Malaysianwings reporters to follow Malaysian delegation for a better write-up BMI considering KUL? Now that they've expanded to Saudi Arabia after BA left, i guess anything is possible. Anyhow, with BD in Star Alliance, I don't see much insentives for them to fly to KUL anyway because SQ/TG is nearby. Their longest route is now MAN-LAS on A332, so if they're really serious about KUL they'd better find new planes. My prediction = not gonna happen.

"A matter of time"? Long time more like The furtherst to the east EI fly is to Athens. They're scaling back their european operations into a LCC while slashing down prices for the transatlantic sectors. EI could do well in HKG with a help from CX as a feeder carrier, or SIN with its QF network; but KUL??? If DUB were to get a KUL connection, it's more likely to see MH's own service; perhaps a tag-on on ZRH flights? Finnair is serious about their Asian expansion, for a relatively small airline they fly to NRT/KIX/NGO/PEK/PVG/HKG/CAN/BKK/SIN.... That's quite a line-up! KUL would fit nicely into their network, our corner of the world is very popular with Nordic vacationers. The problem with Saudi Arabian is that they have to rely largely on O&D traffic. There's just as much demand between Saudi and Malaysia as it is between UAE/Qatar/Bahrain etc and yet we have daily service from KUL on EK, QR & GF compared to a measly 2x weekly on SV. These gulf carriers take pride on their efficient hubs linking East & West, something that SV / Saudi airports are lacking.

One of the longest, but not THE longest. Varig still fly GIG-GRU-LAX-NRT on MD11 27h 45m westbound, 25h 40m eastbound This is the longest (time) scheduled flight at the moment, and the #2 longest in terms of distance (#1 is NZ1/NZ2 AKL-LAX-LHR). As far as EZE might be from KUL, when it comes to distance it's actually only around at #8 in the Top 10 list. Europe-Australia/NZ is further.

KUL-JNB has a lot of business traffic and seats are often filled to the full so I'd be surprised if it's not making good money. The likes of TG and QR are also opening up new routes to JNB because the market to/from South Africa is certainly there. The extention to EZE is another matter altogether. Being the only airline from Asia to fly there gives us some clue that is a very thin route or else other airline would be queueing to fly there (EK is the exception, they'd probably fly to Alor Setar if given a chance ). The only other Asian airline to fly to South America is JAL, but then again, it's justifiably so considering Sao Paulo has the largest concentration of Japanese outside Japan, plus they have rights to carry passenger between JFK & GRU. Whatever demand there is between Argentina and South Africa can be filled by Varig & South African. Can anyone give a good reason why MAS is still flying to EZE? I sure hope I'm missing something here.

AF would rather have people who need to reach KUL to all fly to SIN, then connect on SQ/MH rather than having their own CDG-KUL service. They want to consolidate their operation in SIN rather than splitting it 50/50 with KUL now that AF is codesharing with QF to Australian cities via SIN. In a way MH is to blame for deciding their alliance partnership too late. They only started to publically annouce their intention to join an alliance round about the same time AF signed a codeshare partnership with QF to Australia. I guess AF is tired of waiting for its potential Southeast Asian partner to get its act together and decide. Should MH have decided 2 years ago, things *might* turn out differently now. AF don't need both MH & QF to serve the same market. They signed with QF first, so it's going to take a hell lot of work before we see a true AF/MH partnership.

It's not easy to tell which route is the most profitable. Sure LHR are always quite full, but the fare quoted by MAS for LHR are often cheaper than AMS/CDG/FCO/ZRH/ARN/VIE because they have the extra capacity for this route, plus the competition they face from EK/SQ/CX on the Kangaroo Route. So the profit for LHR sector per economy class seat should be less than other European gateways. In terms of total profit, LHR could be the winner because of volume (18x weekly) and relatively high % of business travelers. Let's see an example for flights between Cairns, Australia and Japan (except for Narita) which are now served by Australian Airlines after being handed over the routes from Qantas. Qantas, with its 3-class configuration, could not fill the front end of the aircraft adequately to make good money on this route because this is largely a leisure-based sector, flown by price-concious travelers. For this reason, flights between Cairns and Osaka/Nagoya/Fukuoka/Sapporo are all operated by economy class-only Australian Airlines. Just because a plane is often full in Y doesn't always mean that it's making good money. One may quote that MAS flights to so-and-so destination are often full (in Y), but that's not enough to determine profitability. We need to take into account how well the premium classes are doing, and the fare MAS charge - the less competition on the route, the higher MAS can afford to charge their passengers. Economy cabin does not need to be *that* full if an airline can fill the premium classes adequately.

Airchive - airline archive http://www.airchive.com/

NW/KLM operate in such a way that they complement each other's service. AMS-Delhi is operated by KL AMS-Mumbai is operated by NW AMS-Hyderabad is/will be operated by KL AMS-Bangalore is/will be operated by NW The same goes for transatlantic flights. There's no overlapping of routes between AMS and the USA. KLM is already operating AMS-KUL so the chance of NW lauching their own AMS-KUL is extremely slim to none. All NW flights to the Far East go via Japan (NRT/NGO/KIX). If NW were to relaunch KUL, it'll be via Japan, hopefully via NRT this time rather than KIX previously. SAA flew JNB-SIN-TPE in mid-90s. They probably had other routings over the years too before they stopped flying to SIN. Now that they're entering Star Alliance soon, they might make a comeback.

I too would like to hear more about this "bad relationship between MH and AF concerning the Paris flights". Pieter o Pieter where art thou?

I hope that's all it is, just rumours. How can MH only become associate member like Kenya, Tarom, Air Europa and the likes? If placed under the same membership category as these regional carriers then that would be a total disgrace. We're talking about one of only 4 airlines to be classified as 5 star, and one of only 4 airlines in the world to fly to all 6 continents. None of the present members of SkyTeam comes even close to MH based on Skytrax global rankings in any category. I don't need to mention how valuable MH is to provide the much-needed coverage in Australia, Southeast Asia & India. MH deserve nothing less than a full membership. Imagine SQ or CX not being full members of their respective alliances.

Something's definitely wrong here. MH & KL each has 7 flights per week - quoted as KUL MH 07 KL 07. So that's fine. AZ actually serve AMS 3x a day while KLM fly to FCO 5x a day. So the list should not be "ROM AZ 03 KL 05" but "ROM AZ 21 KL 35" instead if quoted as weekly frequencies. Sorry Pieter but the list is not really comparing apple to apple. For European destinations, those frequencies should be per day, for longhaul ones per week. AMS-LON is massive! BA operates 14x a day to AMS (8 ex-LHR, 6 ex-LGW) and KL 17x a day. For KLM, that still does not include AMS-MAN/BHX/NCL/GLA/EDI/BRS/CWL etc

It's strange why they did not include Tarakan in their online schedule. Most if not all other Twin Otter routes a.k.a. Rural Air Service are available online. Luckily I have MAS printed timetable in hand and I can confirm that Tarakan flight is indeed operated on Twin Otters now. MH841 Tawau-Tarakan dep 1100 arr 1140 MH840 Tarakan-Tawau dep 1200 arr 1240 days of operation : Mon & Thu equipment : DHT

It's also possible to fly KCH-BKI all on Twin Otter flights. For a daytrip, one could do BKI-KCH on the first 734 flight of the day, then slowly make your way back to BKI on Twin Otters. Note that the following connections are only possible on Mondays, and only on KCH-BKI direction. B734 flight :- MH2801 dep 0715 arr 0940 Kota Kinabalu-Miri-Kuching Twin Otter flights :- MH3805 dep 1020 arr 1125 Kuching-Mukah MH3704 dep 1140 arr 1250 Mukah-Miri <--lunch break--> MH3370 dep 1540 arr 1620 Miri-Limbang MH3370 dep 1635 arr 1655 Limbang-Lawas MH3370 dep 1705 arr 1755 Lawas-Kota Kinabalu (*) MH3805 & MH3704 are operated using the same aircraft So, do I see Pieter jumping up and down now?

I believe it's the other way round. Tarakan used to be served on F50 but has now been downgraded to Twin Otter. MH no longer use F50 on this sector. Twin Otter aircraft usage on Mondays in Sabah would be as follows :- MH3006 dep 0755 arr 0825 Kota Kinabalu-Kudat MH3006 dep 0840 arr 0930 Kudat-Sandakan MH3105 dep 0950 arr 1040 Sandakan-Tawau MH841 dep 1100 arr 1140 Tawau-Tarakan Flight then leaves Tarakan at 1200 to return to KK via Tawau, Sandakan & Kudat. That would make a great sightseeing daytrip flight!