Tom/PER

For those that may have missed it, OD's B738 9M-LNV has been leased to Fiji Airways to provide coverage for their grounded MAX's. Read somewhere that it was fully crewed by OD tech and cabin crew with the addition of a FJ purser. Still intrigues me that OD can afford to wet lease out 2 738's and still operate their full network including their recently introduced routes, I just can't fathom to understand their fleet logic. That said their does seem to be noticeably less aircraft parked opposite the B gates at KLIA.

Thank you Mushrif and Julius, ended up with row 16 at check in so itll be interesting too see if theres any noticeable difference in the leg-room. My previous sectors on these ex AB A332s have been quite positive.

Cheers JW...so does that mean these additional charge seats are either Y+ or is it just because they are located closer to the pointy end? I was under the impression that the MAS A333s only had 2 rows or forward Y seats with additional legroom.

Im on MH127 tonight and during the online checkin process it shows rows 14-19 as being XL seats, theyre available for purchase for an additional AUD$89.90. Does that mean its a A333 and are these Y+ seats? PER has been a mixed bag recently of A332/333s however the past week its been solely A332s. Any help or guidance is appreciated.

Had a interesting conversation with someone involved with OD's ground handled agent here in Perth who provided some inside info. Australia's are price conscious and since moving from the hybrid model to that of a low-cost carrier, there's been plenty of frustration and angst at check in when passengers find out their bookings no longer include checked bags, which are apparently obscured in the booking process. Rumours are forward bookings are looking fairly dismal, interestly the previous loyal Malindo folk are moving towards SQ and D7 are apparently looking to increase their services on the afternoon departure ex Perth. It'll be interesting to see if they have a future, as at one stage they were quite a viable competitor on the route, although most OD flyers hold onward connections to Central Asia.

Just done a return PER-KUL-PEN-KUL-PER trip, MH127/126 was on A332's with the recent Northern Summer changes, which was a huge deciding factor when booking this trip. As side note has anyone looked more closely at the utilisation rates for these 6 A332's? They're very low and the aircraft spend most of their time parked in KUL, does anyone know if these are on a pay-by-the-hour lease arrangement or a conventional lease? Looking at FR24 records there's no way they currently need all 6 of these aircraft, once again MH seems unable to efficiently make best use of their assets.

Read Malindo are set to commence a 4 day weekly service to ADL via DPS in 1Q 2019. OD173/174 with an evening arrival/departure ex ADL. Wonder if we'll see some additional aircraft added to their fleet.

LNF last night operated OD155/156 and today OD151/152 to/from Perth, it was her first visit to Australia, which is quite remarkable. I've seen a photo of her taken today and she's no sporting EDTO titles below the cockpit windows, does anyone when she was converted? Loadings must be favourable as 900ER's are now regular visitors here.

I've read somewhere PER is being upgraded to a A333 for a few weeks in December.

Looks very temporary and tacky compared to the others, she's just returned from a maintenance check with GAMCO at CGK too.

Yep I can clearly see what you're referring too know after comparing images of the different door configurations. As that's the case, surely they'd be best off sending these to TAAX and transferring a standard configuration A333 across, -XBD is going to be more of an orphan in the fleet than -XAA was!

Airfleets is showing A333 9M-XBD ex B-6119 as the next leased acquisition. Any idea what configuration she'll be in?

367 all Y seats is a very spacious configuration in a A333, D7 usually have 377 including the 12 Premium seats.

Appreciate your response Capt. Radzi. Interesting to read most of the ex Australia capacity is most point to point capacity flying to DPS and not onwards to KUL and beyond.

That thought crossed my mind too, so far all MEL flights have been operated by the PER B738 regular trio of -LNV, W and Y. Melbourne being operated by 738's is surprising as it's gotta be right at the extreme payload limitations of a 738, would of thought it was a guaranteed B739ER service. QF B738's operating DPS-SYD (and the upcoming DPS-MEL route) operate payload restricted with centre seats blocked in the forward economy cabin.

Things must be looking up at OD. B739ER 9M-LNL has been returned to service after spending some 15months parked up at KLIA being cannibalised.

Hopefully Perth!! Which is the A332 that is being prepared in Singapore? MTU/V were both done at Zurich and MTX in the Phillipines.

Sadly, MTU and V have so far only undertaken a handful of flights since entering service. I don't think they're operating MH130/131 to AKL either as per that routesonline update, pretty sure it's still A333's.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/277887/malindo-air-files-melbourne-june-2018-launch/

Slightly off-topic, does anyone know the rego of the all white ex MH B738 parked outside the maintenance hangars last week at KLIA?

Cheers as always flee, was unaware these were being sourced from MU.

I believe the one pictured here c/n 665 EI-GFI is the future 9M-MTV. That also confirms the 6 frames which MH are leasing.....c/n's 665, 822, 828, 911, 968 and 1112.

flee, any idea where the 12 year old A333 frames AAX is leasing in this year are coming from yet?

Courtesy of Skyliner... A330-223 c/n 665 9M-MTU ferried 27Feb18 LDE-ZRH wearing rego EI-GFH for paint and delivery. So it appears the ones in SIN and MNL are not the prospective 9M-MTU as first thought if the info posted on Skyliner is correct. Airlfeets lists c/n's 665, 822 and 911 are destined for MH.

Aircraft involved looks to be 9M-XXV a reasonable newish A333. Wonder if it's yet another fan-blade failure.