JuliusWong

Given how cheap the B737-800NG lease is nowadays, I don't see why MAG is reluctant to do so. They can quite easily induct two airframes from a same source to reduce the paperwork and pre-EIS activity. However this is MAG we are talking about, they have done stranger things. I have read some bad comments on the service KCH-MYY by FY vv. Certainly looks bad on MAG overall. Now that Maswings will be bought over by Sarawak government, will they be competing with MAG? That would be interesting to see. Many moons ago, MH domestic route map were quite extensive.

Curious to know what makes FFF different from MLK and MLL since they are from the batch and manufactured at the same time. I landed last Sunday evening unfortunately I could not see much of the hangar. Based on the customer code -8FZ, there is only one available in the market Aeromexico XA-AMW in storage since October 2023, not sure if FY would like to stick to same customer code or they will randomly grab any random B737-800NG from the used market. There are a lot of used B737-800NG available now.

My guess on the three additional B737-800NG 9M-FFF, 9M-MLK, and 9M-MLL?

Gain some, lose some, can't satisfy everyone, unfortunately. Hopefully with this revision, MAHB has no more excuses for less than stellar customer experience when they use KLIA Terminal 1. The Anjung Tinjau is in a mess now. The mini Kidzania occupied the whole right side, and was not in operation at all last week when I was travelling through. Left side is occupied by Tabung Haji, which I can still make do with. They placed the coffee and drinks machine...arggh.....so messy.

This was last Thursday March 7, 2024 17 00 hours. The Immigration Department of Malaysia should really take a leaf from those of their Singapore counterpart. There was no staff directing elderly family travelling with kids/ special needs individuals to the priority counters. Really feel bad for our guests. 00

Not this year AFAIK, but from 2026 onwards. FY 737 will concentrate in PEN for now, ATR72 service at SZB will gradually draw down by 2026 before becoming full jet services. Batik Air has not indicate they will do 737 services from SZB as they do not want to spread out their resources between two airports KUL and SZB. Things may change again depending on how the government plans to re-develop SZB.

Just done a trip to Singapore. The immigration clearance was a breeze. Cleared in few seconds during both arrival and departure (despite split seconds slower than HK's). KLIA should dish out RFP now for those readers, and get them ready for 2026 Visit Malaysia Year. The lines departing KUL was embarrassing, so was the arriving. Time is right for a multi-million dollar contract for bumiputera/ SME/ crony.......

AirAsia relaunches Bushbaneswar with 3x weekly flight. SEPANG, 6 March 2024 ‒ AirAsia today announced the resumption of flights to the culturally-rich Bhubaneswar the capital of Odisha, with thrice weekly flights commencing 28 May 2024. With this new addition, AirAsia will eventually fly to 13 cities in India. AirAsia Malaysia (AK) Thiruvananthapuram Chennai Tiruchirappalli Kochi Hyderabad Bengaluru Kolkata Jaipur (commencing April 21, 2024) Visakhapatnam (commencing April 26, 2024) Ahmedabad (commencing May 1, 2024) Bubhaneswar (commencing May 24, 2024) AirAsia X (D7) New Delhi Amritsar

Gonna miss FY and OD turboprop operation from SZB. Near to my home, buy ticket, arrive one hour before, hop onboard, less than an hour you are at your holiday/ work destination! With FY also exiting the turboprop business, SZB will be pretty empty. Time to catch those mozzies ATR 72 now before they are retire for good.

Yes, the last two months only SZB-BTH was operating with only one ATR 72 9M-LMH operating. It operated the last flight OD303 BTH-SZB on February 17, 2024.

Will be very cramped. This seat map is from Helvetic Airways E190-E2 with 110 seats.

Scoot to fly new Embraer jets to six destinations in Malaysia and Thailand Esther Loi UPDATED MAR 05, 2024, 09:34 PM https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/scoot-to-fly-new-embraer-jets-to-six-destinations-in-malaysia-and-thailand SINGAPORE - From May 2024, Scoot will operate flights from Singapore to six South-east Asian destinations with its new fleet of Embraer E190-E2 planes. The six places are new destinations Koh Samui in Thailand and Sibu in Malaysia, as well as existing destinations comprising Hat Yai and Krabi in Thailand, and Kuantan and Miri in Malaysia, said Singapore Airlines’ budget arm Scoot in a statement on March 5. The airline’s E190-E2 services are expected to start on May 7, after the first jet is delivered in April, said Scoot. Flights to Krabi, Hat Yai and Koh Samui in Thailand, as well as Miri in Malaysia will begin in May, while flights to Kuantan and Sibu in Malaysia will start from June. The first E190-E2 jet will be used on Scoot’s existing flights to Hat Yai and Krabi from May 7, increasing flight frequencies to both destinations from seven to 10 times every week. This comes after Scoot initially said in a statement that the first plane was expected to arrive in March, as part of the five that will be delivered in 2024, when announcing its purchase of nine Embraer planes on Feb 17. The airline later updated that four more jets will be delivered by the end of 2024, with the remaining four arriving by the end of 2025, according to Embraer’s Asia-Pacific vice-president Raul Villaron, who was speaking at a media launch of a flight simulator for Embraer E2 jets at the Singapore-CAE Flight Training Centre on Feb 20. Scoot added on March 5 that the second E190-E2 jet is also scheduled for delivery in April, allowing the carrier to operate flights to four more cities: Koh Samui in Thailand, as well as Sibu, Kuantan and Miri in Malaysia. With the delivery of these two planes, the airline will operate 103 and 92 weekly flights to Malaysia and Thailand respectively by June. The new routes to Koh Samui and Sibu will increase Scoot’s network to 69 destinations. Sales for these flights operated by E190-E2 jets will be progressively available for booking via Scoot’s website, mobile app and other channels. Economy class fares, inclusive of taxes, start from $172 to Koh Samui and $72 to Sibu. The E190-E2 jet has a range of 5,278km, or six hours of flight time. As the smallest aircraft in Scoot’s fleet, it can seat up to 112 passengers.

I think those EzPaz and EzBagz....facial recognition and self bag drop are part of IATA worldwide program to reduce the airline operation cost, airport around the region are rolling out the same. It would only be prudent KLIA and those international airport getaway do the same. I saw the same in DMK and HAN recently. Tried those HKG one recently, the system took less than a sec to recognise my boarding pass and my face. As for immigration, the Changi departure might not be the best, tried it thrice thus far, not sure if it was my bad luck I had two breakdowns. At one time I was stuck within the gate. Then they quickly deployed the staff to do manual stamp out. The lines were pretty long due to evening departures. But kudos to the officers, they knew which flight is near to departure, they shouted (in good tone) to ask those pax to move to the front. For Malaysia arrival, the first time arrival is for capturing face and thumbprint if I am not mistaken. Thereafter you don't need to anymore. Correct me if I am wrong. Yes, for transitting in KLIA could be better. I think they are in the next phase of upgrade. They don't much time left. Year 2026 is Visit Malaysia year. We have wasted too much time in the last decade and from 2020 to 2022...Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and The Philippines are going for head to head competition. Malaysia and Thailand seems to have upper hand now, but let's hope they do not rest on laurel.

Seems like the government is dead serious in revamping KLIA and other airports. Do or die mission it is. After a decade of stagnant, finally we can see KLIA on the move again. Looking forward to seeing the new revamped KUL, LGK, PEN, KCH and BKI.

Just did a rough check on Qatar Airways departure to LHR over the next two days, absolutely crazy! QR9709 is code sharing with BA. UA and AA have given up on fighting ME3, they are now on the same beds at ME3. LOL. So much for Fair Skies~!

Resuming with 7x weekly flight with B787-9. I like how The Independent reporting the news about KUL. I am very surprised BA can't make BKK works with LHR. Qatar Airways has 6x daily flight! What the........I think one slot is lease from Royal Brunei. And the return of BA to KUL deserves some celebration.

The final A320ceo (9M-DAN MSN 3349, new registration VP-CAU) that was successfully delivered a few days before MYAirlines collapsed is now transiting in HNL, Hawaii on its return to the US. https://www.instagram.com/p/C4HJergva6_/

India will definitely be the next economy powerhouse for the next decade as China wanes off due to US-China trade conflicts for the past few years and also their dispute with SEA neighbours. China population is also seeing a decline now and India outranked China as the country with largest population last year. In 20 years' time, the newborns will fuel the economy growth. However India is now suffering from growth pains as the current infrastructures are unable to keep up with the growing population. Trains, road, airports, hospitals are unable to cope with the load. If they can pull off what China did after their ascension into WTO in 2001, they will be a force to reckon with. As mentioned by you the bilateral rights is also one of the constraints. India can be notorious in granting rights into their primary hubs, let alone their secondary airports. Emirates and Etihad wanted more flights but the India government said no. Emirates has no choice but to deploy their high dense A380s on their routes to India. Despite the constraint, the India government also does not allow their own airlines or even international airlines to fly willingly from secondary airport bypassing the hub airport. Airlines in India places a collective order for 1,172 new aircraft last year, the growth will be humongous. Meeting pilot and crew demand will be an issue. Airbus has opens a pilot training centre Tata Airbus Training Centre with Air India. India government and the local state governments are now busy building new airports to meet the increasing demands. Thankfully Boeing and Airbus supply chain issue slows down the growth a bit, but not much. Singapore Airlines has the first mover advantage now since they ventured into India with TATA with Vistara and now own shares in the revitalised Air India. Singapore Airlines are also using A380s on some of their India routes. Will be interesting to know what Malaysia government and airlines in Malaysia game plan for India market now and in the next decade.

SE-RSC was re-delivered to SAS last Saturday March 2, 2024 France local time.

The new investors will burn few millions dollars even before his/her new airline takes off. Who in the right mind would want to do so? Unless those cryptocurrency, scammers want to burn off their ill gotten money. Well well, they are talking to new investors now....This cat really has nine lives. I think lawsuit against the previous interested party should be last thing to do in their to-do list. LOL

Sayonara forever?

Definitely need to hear the whole interview transcript before we should pass our judgement. Media, especially those in Malaysia, loves to sensationalize the story to earn clicks. Various media now are reporting bits and pieces of the whole interview. That being said, the MSA split to MAS and SIA was the turning point. TAR wanted to prioritize the domestic front while LKY wanted to develop the international front. They never get along well. Never meant to be, better split up. Malaysia Airlines System was sealed after Mr. Tajuddin Ramli took over the the management in 1994. Many stuff were propped up artificially, and it all came crashing down down in 2001 after 9/11 incident. The successive management teams were limping from HDU to CCU to ICU......The airline never stood a chance to recover at all, basically with no money in their bank account forcing them to sell their assets. Like it or not, when you are a beggar, you cannot be choosy. While the public can say whatever they want with Idris Jala (2009 - 2011) being assets stripper, cutting the Group to bare bones, what could be done differently then when you have no cash in hand to fund your daily operation? Malaysia Airlines had 20,000 employees and reported losses of USD400 million in the 9 months leading to his entrance. In just 24 months of rigorous transformation, he produced a $260m profit (many said via selling off assets, but hey at least you have money to fund your operation). If you are given the post, what would you do differently compared to him? 2001 was also the rise of AirAsia. In the subsequent years, MH saw several CEOs coming and leaving after a short period of time in the hot seat, Tengku Datuk Azmil Zahruddin (2009 - 2011), Ahmad Jauhari (2011 - 2015), Christoph Mueller (2015 - 2016), Peter Bellew (2016 - 2017), Izham Ismail (2017 - current), each CEOs had their own strategy but did not possess the strong will to make hard decision unfortunately. Farnborough Airshow is in July this year, fingers crossed MAG has made their mind in placing another order for 20 A330-900neo and 20 A321neo/ B737 Max 10.

This seems to be normal occurrence in airports worldwide. Most, if not all major airlines, have divested or outsourced their ground service to third party company. Their employment terms are usually lesser than ideal from what they have been receiving when they were under the airline itself. Often long hours with minimum pay, but still need to fork out much money to eat at the airport. Some outsourcing companies even hire non-native to man the counters. That being said my encounter with AeroDarat was hit and miss. Some of them were very pleasant, some were just doing minimal smile. My recent encounter with Swissport ground staff at Osaka Int'l Airport left too much to be desired for. I was flying AirAsia X, after long period of shadow ban. Ground staff were mostly non-local: Thai, Russians, Korean etc some barely speaking basic English language. Counter opened at 7:45am. Flight departing at 10:45am. I arrived at 8:00am. There were seven counters opened, two for premium customers, the rest for non-premium. There were no counter for online check in baggage drop and they did not divert the lines to premium lines even though there were no pax checking in there. It was so frustrating long check-in/baggage drop process. I only managed to drop my luggage and got my boarding pass at 9:25am. Boarding time was 9:45am. It was a mad rush to clear security check and immigration clearance. Thank God the security check was swift and there was no line at immigration counters. No time to explore the newly refurbished airside terminal.

Assembling an A320neo will take around one to two months pre-COVID, I am pretty sure after the pandemic it will take slightly longer due to supply chain issue. We should be seeing A321neo in production sequence now if the first new delivery for this year is intended for June 2024. However, most production list does not show any AirAsia frames in queue. Maybe we will see lessors' frame delivered first or the production sequence will slot in March/April.