V Wong

That's a good one, Georg. I will keep it handy for future reference.

Anyone could get hold of a copy of the survey? Please post it here if you have a copy. Being heavily involved in research myself, one is just too aware how a poorly designed and biased questionnaire can churn out the expected result. The way the questions are phrased, sequence of questions, options offered, survey methodology, definition of 'satisfied', 'compliments', 'complaints', analysis of the raw data obtained ( usually there is a composite total score, as each response is given a scoring scale so that a final summary can be made for each respondent) etc , etc can be biased/incorrect to answer the research question being asked. If the questionnaire, methodology and data analysis is not robust, then the result, however convincing, in number, is NOT VALID. guilty of manipulating data once in a while to obtain the expected result.....

Azizul, just resign to the fact that everything in this colossal giant of a machinery called MH moves slowly. When bored, one could always play a game of spot-the-number-of-outdated-info in MH website. You'll be surprised at the yield. This is one aspect where AK, and many other lesser airlines, beat MH hands down.

OH, how I wish I could stuff those delightful 'sandwic' into their face! Then give them a survey form to fill up OT- a temperamental uncle of mine once insisted the manager of an international fastfood outlet eat the foul food served to him. "Eat it! Eat it!"....and refused a refund

Write up on MM Lee Kuan Yew's tour of T3 can be found here Quotes : 'CHANGI Airport's Terminal 3 may give Singapore's aviation industry an edge over rivals, but the competition is 'ceaseless'. 'The key is, who has got the location? Who is able to attract more flights and more customers? They are the people who can keep on building more modern terminals and more facilities. 'So the competition is not in the terminal itself but in all the totality of your attractiveness as an aviation hub.' His take on SQ's A380 : 'tending towards a certain sense of luxury, opulence'. MH and KUL - are you listening?

Thanks Hardeep. IJ's reply - New take on talking a lot without meaning anything at all. MH way, hassle free all the way Also, looks like it was sent quite fast. What was the response time from IJ?

One also gets worried with the amount of propaganda running in MH management: FSLCC = five star@ low cost carrier? (more like Full S%*# Load of Crass Crap) Virtuous cycle of profitable growth? Wow, this one is real Mao inspired Malaysian Hospitality, hassle free all the way? Keep spinning, and we will replace the Golden Kite livery with the Gasing (Spinning Top), another east coast icon

IJ quoted as saying here "Since the launch on Oct 1, we have obtained feedback on 35, 000 customers on 383 flights, where 91 percent are satisfied with it, 5 percent gave compliments, 3 percent gave complaints and 1 percent gave suggestions for improvement. " "If it works we intend to implement it in routes less than three hours flight in the network," said Idris, stressing that currently the meal box is on trial period and therefore are open to changes. If these figures are to be believed, then spotters will soon have a field day cause cows can fly! There is also no need to conduct further survey, just implement it. You've got a winning product here! Delightful.... I don't know whether to cry or laugh yet again

see today's bernama news.. here try to beat this, MH

There have probably made some intelligent estimates ( I hope) - to fleece newcomers/business sponsored/ international passengers entering Malaysia with little choice but fly MH (given the travel boom and demand outstripping supply) and make low yielding passengers the sacrificial lamb... Kind of different view from TG who recently said its A380 will not be configured to be as luxurious as SQ's because 80% of its revenue is from Y, seehere one wonders if MH is trying to desert its non-premium passengers...

You can add Step 7: Stirctly enforce excess baggage rules Step 8: Downgrade food quality and quantity

Love for MH... true for most of us. However, if MH no longer love its customer (especially low yielding/self paying ones) its time for sayonara. Hope.....the higher the expectation, the harder is the fall. Maybe we should change our mindset like MH - pitch itself against LCC like AK all the time, so that every little improvement over AK, no matter how minute, is counted as a 'delightful' achievement. Then, one would not be disappointed..... although this may not be true all the time as MH is inferior to AK in many ways!

I've not said this often enough: I don't know whether to cry or laugh!

Probably a little too early to nail lowest priced ticket. Get your TA for a quotation and an idea of when the cheapest ticket will be released for sale.

Though I am no businessman, tenet in business : "Never shortchange your customer" still hold true. Send a complaint letter to MAS, the local papers if you want... but vote with your wallet for your future flights. I suspect the recent spate of mwingers MH bashing was done in the hope the national airline will soar again and restore some lost pride, without malicious intent. However, once one is reconciled to the hard cold truth that this will not happen and that the management will literally sell their mother to obtain profit at any cost, including losing loyal customers, the choice is extremely easy. Cut the Gordian knot and banish MH.... but sort of contradictory for me, since I still eagerly await any MH news. I still feel like a traitor for my next few flights will be with SQ. It is not easy to cut the knot afterall

Extremely disturbing view from IJ in response to KUL-SIN route opening to LCC (excerpt from Bernama as found in another post) : "We will not behave like a low-cost carrier. We will always provide superior products and services to customers but we will drive down our costs so that we will then be able to offer highly-competitive rates to passengers, "he said. Just how LOW can MH go is anyone's guess.... shivering in anticipation

Go to Straits Times Singaporefor SIA CEO's view on KUL-SIN route liberalisation

MAS Chairman Proposes London Upgrade Its Link With KL October 26, 2007 19:49 PM KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 26 (Bernama) -- Malaysia Airlines (MAS) chairman, Datuk Dr Munir Majid, has proposed that the UK, and more specifically London, upgrade its links with Malaysia and see it as a significant enough influence in the sphere of international diplomacy. He said there was a tremendous amount of goodwill in Malaysia-British relations, especially in this 50th year of Malaysia's independence, but both nations should not be lulled into a false sense of sentimentality and instead should face the fact that practical considerations drove political, economic, business and other links between the two countries. He said this when delivering a keynote address on "Malaysia-UK Relations: Looking Back, Looking Forward" at a commemorative conference on 50 years of Malaysia-British Partnership in London yesterday. "For example, British Airways (BA) terminated flights to KL effective March 26, 2001 after almost 50 years of that service, based on their own business plan and commercial considerations. "To take another instance, on Oct 3 this year, the UK signed a landmark Open Skies Agreement with Singapore, which takes effect in March 2008, giving their respective airlines unlimited access to national and regional destinations beyond point of arrival," he said. "For Malaysia, therefore, in the aviation sector, what are the prospects of BA coming back, and of a similarly liberal open skies agreement, say recognising KL International Airport as a transit point to other parts of the country and region for the leisure market, and Heathrow for Britain and Europe?," he said. Munir pointed out that these were the kinds of matters that should be wrestled with as both nations moved forward and the highly-competitive aviation industry was a good test of seeing how the fount of goodwill could be translated into tangible cooperation. -- BERNAMA

Congrats Izanee, your letter hit NST today, almost unedited!

I'll be in Gold Coast 9-11 Nov, in Brisbane 12 and 13 Nov, followed by self-drive holiday then back to GC on 18th.

Good luck Izanee, my letter to the NST editor ranting about the cutback in meal services, old planes, non-competitive pricing was published back in July - no response from MH. Obviously, this time, the MH spin doctors saw cheap opportunity to spin further in response to Dennis' letter. To announce the 'encouraging passenger response' and explain again the whole process of creating the costly mealbox without any advertising fee. If only all those effort could be used to upgrade existing services, rather than downgrade, the world would be a better place...

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I read this response from MH spin doctor. For me, this ranks as one of the most amusing/irritating read of the year, depending on my mood. In good mood, it was an amusing piece of joke. In foul mood, I would tell them to go fly the golden kite - total effrontery of passenger intelligence.... MAS meal boxes: Feedback very encouragingBy : DATUK RASHID KHAN, Commercial Director, Malaysia Airlines WE refer to your report "Observers find MAS meal box hard to swallow" (NST, Oct 17) and the letter "Think again on meal boxes" by William Dennis of Subang Jaya (NST, Oct 19). When we launched our Business Turnaround Plan in February last year, our focus was on returning the airline to profitability through "The MAS Way" which is made up of five key thrusts, including "Flying to Win Customers". Based on this thrust, a "Winpath" customer experience lab was activated to review our total customer value proposition (CVP). The revised CVP, with the tagline "Malaysian Hospitality, Hassle Free, All the Way" comprises a four-pronged approach to fix top breakages, on-site recovery, improve customer perception and implement key initiatives, including review of our overall inflight service delivery to our customers. Based on our inflight surveys, we established that a large proportion of our economy-class passengers preferred light meals for short-haul flights. Using the feedback from such surveys, we focused on the top five food items preferred by the respondents and conceptualised the new meal service. The mealbox design and content of 15 airlines were also studied and taken into consideration to finalise our mealbox concept. Our customers on short-haul flights now enjoy a variety of offerings with the mealbox concept, comprising savoury sandwiches, fruit yoghurt, fresh fruits, crunchy snacks or sweet muffin, depending on the time of the day. Children's meals and special meals, including vegetarian, are also offered when booked in advance and we are continuing to serve our customers unlimited inflight beverages such as coffee, tea and fruit juices. The result is a more wholesome offering, promoting healthy eating and a well-balanced diet, while providing our passengers with the option of taking away the boxes. Through the introduction of this concept, our service delivery is faster and it also allows more rest time for customers after meals. This is one of the many initiatives that we will progressively roll out to provide our customers with a new dining experience on board and we wish to assure our customers that such initiatives are benchmarked against the best carriers in the region and are aimed at delighting passengers. Since we introduced this concept on Oct 1, feedback from our passengers has been very encouraging. Incidentally, it was the Ramadan month, and our passengers who were fasting actually found the mealboxes convenient to take along with them for consumption later, after breaking fast. Nevertheless, as this is a new concept on our flights, we are continuously monitoring our customers' feedback to further enhance this concept so that they will enjoy the best of our Malaysian hospitality when flying with us. As for the observation by William Dennis on our B737 seats, we wish to clarify that our seat pitches in the business and economy classes are 35 inches and 32 inches respectively, better than that of other full service providers and low-cost carriers (LCC). It is true that we closed our own lounge at Changi in June last year and temporarily facilitated this front-end hospitality in the airport operator's lounge. By the end of last year, we resumed our Changi Golden Lounge operations in the same premises with a new look and feel, standardised with that of our lounges in Malaysia. As for our drive to maintain our five-star status at LCC cost, we are confident of achieving this through innovative approaches focused on cost reductions and controls through our CVP initiatives, without compromising the quality of our products and services.

Makes one wonder how SIN, BKK, DXB steadily expanded over the years, how the respective national aviation long term plans were executed, etc.... Does Malaysia have a national aviation blueprint, executed according to plan? Right now, it looks like anything goes... anywhere.. anyone...anytime.

What is the range of F50 for non-stop flight? Where are the feasible destinations from SZB and JHB?

This was in today's NST - main letter to the editor "Inflight service: Think again on meal boxes By : WILLIAM DENNIS, Subang Jaya AS a frequent traveller, I think Malaysia Airlines’ decision to serve meal boxes in economy class on flights to Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Yangon, Phnom Pehn, Miri, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu effective Oct 1 has definitely affected its image as a full-service carrier (FSC). I think that the quantity and quality of food on MAS’ regional flights had dropped significantly over the past year. With the introduction of the meal boxes, the airline is taking another step backwards in its inflight product offering. Meal boxes were served on MH 686/687 on the Fokker 27 (F27) night flights on the Kuching-Singapore-KL sector in the mid-1970s. Serving the same in this present day of air travel on regional flights, especially on the international sectors, is like taking the airline’s product offering backwards 30 years. A good number of FSCs in Europe have resorted to serving meal boxes on short-haul routes. But the same can’t be adopted in Asia, which is a different market altogether. It is here in Asia where the best airlines in the world are and looking constantly to enhance their product offering for a firm grip on market position. It is clear that MAS’ move to replace the hot meals with meal boxes is to reduce the weight of the aircraft hence the fuel burn-off on these flights. This reduces its operating cost. But it should not be at the expense of its inflight service. MAS should be making an effort to enhance its inflight product offering and compete with low-cost carriers and Thai Airways International, its main competitor on the Indo- China routes. With air travel getting more competitive among FSCs and with low-cost airlines eating into the former’s market share on regional flights, MAS should reconsider its inflight move. MAS had closed its first-class lounge at Changi Airport but early this year, it reopened it probably after realising that it had lost market share to Singapore Airlines. With MAS operating regional routes with an aging fleet of B737-400s with cramped seats in economy class and business class, it puts itself at a further disadvantage. Thai Airways operates the Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok route either with the B777-200, the Airbus A330-300 or the A300-600R while AirAsia operates with the brand-new Airbus A320-200 aircraft. It would not come as a surprise if MAS loses market share on regional routes. A few months ago, MAS said that it aimed to be a five-star airline with low cost. You can never be a five-star carrier with low cost. It is a fact and that is the reality of the airline industry". Well written Mr Dennis! Say no to "5 star with low cost'