JuliusWong

Malaysia Airlines, Firefly and Batik Air will be doing a series of charter flights to China. Malaysia Airlines MH8827 from Shenyang, Liaoning, China. Operated by A330-323 9M-MTJ https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/mh8827 Others: Firefly route Nanjing-Tawau (starting Jan 23) Batik Air routes Chengdu-Langkawi (starting Feb 5) Zhengzhou-KUL (starting Feb 5) Chengdu-Kota Kinabalu (starting Feb 9) Chongqing-Langkawi (starting Feb 10) Xian-KUL (starting Feb 11) in addition, KUL is currently seeing frequency increase and a few new entrants in China-Malaysia market. China Eastern Airlines route Beijing-Kuala Lumpur (four times weekly, starting Jan 31) Loong Air route Hangzhou-KUL (three times weekly, starting Feb 1) Batik Air route Kunming-KUL (4 times weekly, starting Feb 9), and upcoming route Zhangjiajie-KUL (three times weekly, starting Feb 18).

Some fleet movement within AirAsia Group/ Capital A: A320-216 MSN 2926 AP-BLY Pakistan International delivery 07feb24 CGK-BKK-KHI ex 9M-AFL A320-214 MSN 4688 PK-AZX Indonesia AirAsia first in svc 03feb24 CGK-DPS-CGK ex N211FR Source: https://www.skyliner-aviation.de/regdb.main?LC=nav4&page=1 9M-AFL and 9M-AFM (MSN 2944) have now officially joined Pakistan Int'l Airlines after they settled the payment dispute with AirAsia Capital Leasing. AirAsia has now retired most of their first batch of A320ceo 9M-AF* series, with only AFD, AFE, AFF, AFV remaining. Another note, TF mentioned that they will bring back all 191 aircraft in their fleet by Q1, 2024, I believe he means for both A320s and A321s. Including the recent ex-MYAirlines, ex-Frontier Airlines A320ceos additions, the current total A320s fleet stands at 211. Minus four A321neos from 191= 187 A320s. That is 24 A320s unaccounted for. Out of these total 211 A320s, there are currently 42 A320 (both ceos neos) parked, either in storage or undergoing maintenance. My rough estimation is approximately 24 returning to the skies, another 18 will be slated for retirement. List of 42 A320s parked for storage or maintenance.

Some notes for the Year 2024 fleet movement for commercial airlines in Malaysia Malaysia Airlines is planning to add 12 new aircraft this year. Four A330-900neo and eight B737 MAX8 Firefly is planning to add three B737-800NG from parent company Batik Air is planning to add 10 aircraft. One B737 MAX8 and nine B737-800NG AirAsia plans to bring all 191 fleet back in service by Q1, 2024 and resume A321neo delivery this year AirAsia X's plan to merge all AirAsia Group airlines under it to create a single airline hits a snag as Thai AirAsia X is currently under bankruptcy protection status MYAirlines is now left without any aircraft after its last aircraft was deregistered from CAAM, need to secure at least two aircraft to restart air operator certificate (AOC) application process. MASwings is now in the process of transferring to Sarawak Government, currently on due diligence check status SKS Airways's new investors remain elusive as plan to introduce Embraer 195-E2 is up in the air

Malaysia Airlines missed the boat to add eight A350. SE-RSC MSN391 is going back to SAS https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/sas-looks-to-re-introduce-a350-previously-shed-during-fleet-restructuring/156844.article On a side note, all remaining HNA A350s which were repossessed are now heading to Thai Airways.

I do believe there were more to the meeting than just Hamas and Gaza. Some topics are definitely covered. Of course Gaza will definitely grab the headline.

Batik Air is going to another two A330-300ceo to its current fleet of two. Source

Not sure what happened, but Batik Air Malaysia only started flying into ADL last year July. With this, MH will dominate ADL market. Route map on their website is now updated: https://www.malindoair.com/destinations/route-map

I don't think any possible sane travelers in Malaysia would anticipate AA/DL/UA launching service to KUL. Malaysians have fairly lesser relationship to the US compared to say the UK. Malaysia is not a major financial hub compared to Hong Kong and Singapore and our government views are not in line with Uncle Sam most of the time. The government exchange between both is cordial but minimal at best, that's the reason why we will never be getting onto F-35A program or be upgraded to VWP. Those US officials visiting Malaysia was just nothing but courtesy visit, with intention to align Malaysia to them, make Malaysia their chess and styme China rise in the region. Glad that Malaysia (and Indonesia) are not playing their ball of game, unlike South Korea, Japan and Singapore. Plus the US3 have been retreating from South East Asia for the past few years, often relying on their Asian partners to bring their pax to the region. Delta Airlines (gained most Asians route via Northwest acquisition) Dropped - Singapore, Hong Kong, Fukuoka, Narita (Haneda still operating), Nagoya, Osaka Retained - Shanghai, Tokyo-Haneda United Airlines (gained most Asians route via Pan Am acquisition) Dropped - Bangkok, Chengdu, Xi'an, Hangzhou, Hiroshima, Nagoya, Naha, Niigata Airport, Okayama, Sapporo, Sendai (mostly due to downsizing of Guam base), Ho Chi Minh City Retained - Taipei, Singapore, Manila (via Guam base), Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, Fukuoka (via Guam base), Nagoya (via Guam base), Osaka (via Guam base), Tokyo (both Haneda and Narita) American Airlines Dropped - Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei Retained - Tokyo (both Haneda and Narita), Shanghai Malaysia (and China) are the manufacturing hubs for many German companies for Asia. Between Germany and the US, we should have a higher chance of seeing a route resumption to/from Frankfurt than Los Angeles or San Francisco.

Yes, AY has announced KUL for at least thrice but it was never materialised. This was back in MD-11/ A340 era. Last was in 2007 when they abandoned plan to launch KUL in favour of India, China and Japan. Singapore, then a tag-on from BKK was also dropped. AY later returned to SIN via direct flight using A340 then A350. https://www.businesstraveller.com/news/2007/01/24/finnair-drops-singapore-and-malaysia-in-favour-of-china-india-and-japan/ The weirdest of all these potentials is IB. I personally do not think there are enough O&D pax to sustain the route, if they are speaking of IB/BA codesharing then there is a very minimal possibility. Maybe QF (with MH) can feed the number to KUL and from KUL to Europe? LH now is very short of widebody to launch any new routes, since their factory new B787s are being parked in storage due to OEM supply chain issue. They are trying to mop up any second-hand B787s and A350s available in the market. With Condor now being LH competitor, and Eurowings Discover still in infancy, perhaps we can see LH returns quite soon. German President and Minister for Foreign Affairs were here few months ago, maybe something is happening behind the scene.

The locals here I mean the Aussie. Despite them hating Jetstar like how most Malaysians hate AirAsia, people are still buying their tickets. Haha!

Thanks for the correction. Apparently they used to fly from New Delhi and Bengaluru with Chennai to KUL before. LOL, A220 PER-KUL is a good idea since the longest flight now is 7 hr with airBaltic, but with AirAsia doubling its frequency on PER route, not sure if it will be a good start. A220/ A321/ A332/ A333 / B737...that's a good variety.

Also depends if the Australian Immigration relaxes its stance on Malaysians, things are still not as simple and easy as last time. Reverse coin, Malaysians should be more disciplined and have some ethics and moral to leave the country when your visa is due. Don't be selfish. I hope QF can work out some code-sharing with MH to feed each other flights. MH is the only premium carrier now in Australia-Malaysia market, heavily dominated by LCCs. Hope the figures work, if not at least give us JQ which is not desirable for the locals, but at least something better than nothing.

British Airways is given since they flew here before the pandemic only to stop due to lack of aircraft. Now they have got that sorted, time to return to Malaysia. I won't be celebrating for Qantas, there has been few false call back then, there is no noise at airliners.net Australian Aviation thread too. Perhaps Jetstar Int'l making a return? They are short of widebody now. Maybe via A321neo? QF left KUL in 1999 due to poor passengers load. As for Air India case, the airlines in India haven't have a great experience with Malaysian gomen. Malaysia withdrawn its visa-free scheme arbitrarily in 2010 after claiming that over 40,000 Indians had used the routes for illegal immigration and were not traceable. Currently only IndiGo flies once daily flight from Bengaluru, with only 4% market share in India-Malaysia market. The market is dominated by AirAsia Group and Malaysia Airlines. Followed by Batik Air Malaysia.

Took me some time to gather some information. Based on the official Airbus TDCS documentation, there are three variants for A330-200F for both PW and RR engines. Not sure which one did MH opted for, but I think the standard was 233 tons back then. Some of the younger A330-300ceo should be operating along side with A330-900neo owing to the possibly teething issue with the new fleet and the A330neo are not delivered fast enough to allow MH to retire the ceo quickly. Airbus is planning to hike the production rate to four per month in 2024. If CX chooses A330neo over B787s for their regional fleet renewal, the rate will probably go further up. I always think that MH not firming up the 10 options for A330ceo was a very poor decision by Tengku Azmil and Ahmad Jauhari. Those 10 extra A330ceo would come in very handy now for India and Australian/NZ routes. A330ceo was at tail-end production and Airbus was desperate to fill the production slots, MH could have gotten a very good discount. Let's hope they made a better decision on their 20 options for A330neo. As for MH changing the B777 order, the main reason I dug up from archives was MH was suffering from financial constraint during the Asian Financial Crisis 1998, MH rejigged the B747-400 and B777 (both 200ER and -300) order to B747-400 and all B777-200ERs. B77W was only introduced in 2004. Here is an article from January 1996 on MH placing its first order for 15 B777s and 10 B747s order, with options for two more B777s and three B747-400s. The 15 B777s included four B777-300 according to Boeing archive dated back in April 1997. A month before, MH also signed an agreement to be the launch customer for B777-200X which would eventually became B777-200LR. MH cancelled the agreement, and the launch customer honour went to Pakistan International Airlines. MH was once trendsetter right?? Not sure if there was any truth behind the B77W vs. A380s assessment, here is the first press release when the A380s order was made public. There was a lot of hearsay Tun M ordered MH to order A380s due to his ego. Only those in the know behind the scene can attest to this.

Yes, CX underestimated their manpower shortfall from pandemic. The recent mass flight cancellation in Christmas 2023 to New Year 2024 just shows how oblivious the incompetent on what was happening on the ground. CX management is at loggerheads with the pilot union since the start of the pandemic. Back in June 2023, Cathay had 734 captains in June, half as many as it had in the last quarter of 2019. Many senior pilots lost their jobs, or quit over pay cuts of up to 40% over the past three years as Cathay tightened its belt. The management then stated they had sufficient pilots, cabin crew and operational employees to support their current flight schedule, then December came, bam! The truck hit them like a brick. Then they started to recruit new pilots, first batch of 21 graduated last month. It will take more than a decade to replace the lost talent. Emirates is coming to HK and Singapore for recruitment, right at SQ's and CX's face. LOL. One may justify that a lot of those very senior crew were on legacy contract from British colonisation era, hence the CX management used the pandemic as a reason to rescind all the contracts and redo the contract all over. Given how well they were paid and enjoyed host of benefits, did the management ever think those pilot are going to swallow the new contract?? Sounds like CX is borrowing the playbook from MH. The irony both of them are in oneworld. Can't command much abt Mainland China pilots but I only know they need the company approval to leave, if not CAAC will not release them. On the ME locals not taking up cabin crew jobs, yes! The main reason why KU, SV and WY started recruiting Malaysians in the early 90s, the trend continued with the emergence of EK, EY and QR. Malaysians should be proud we are sought after overseas. Today, MH management sent out email to all ex-cabin crews asking them to consider returning to MH. What a bunch of jokers! As far as what I have browsed on IG, MH has lost so much talent, there were few very good male cabin attendants went to SQ and CX. Female cabin attendants went to EK and QR.

Yes indeed sadly, but this has since stopped because SQ stated during their last financial quarter announcement with the media they have enough crew and had recruited enough to make up for the headcount shortfall they cut during the pandemic. On a flip side, SQ is also facing high turnover rate among their cabin crew. SQ has an enduring love for MH crew since Day 1 when Singapore and Malaysia went separate way. That's show how good MH trains its cabin crew!

I find the interview a bit of a joke. Two years to be five-stars airline?? I want that thing he is smoking. To be one it takes more than a new fleet, having just B737MAX-8 and A330neo just won't cut it.

Hahaha, lol...Well, thanks for Goldman Sachs con-sultants we are paying USD13billion interest on something now. We haven't even tough the principal yet. They are for their own pockets. That's the main reason I never and will never respect any con-sultant. MH has a lot of internal talent in the past, the management just did not utilise them well, sadly.

This! Reminds me of SQ's previous rendition of the purple SpaceBed. It was revolutionary when it was launched. SQ locked their competitors out for several years, until it found its way to PK's J class and BI's B767 J class. Yet pax complained abt sleeping in slanting mode. LOL. Joke aside, unless you are SQ which can demand exclusivity and work with high end designer BMW Group DesignworksUSA , beggars cannot be chosers. Just pick anything from the shelf, slap some songket on it and be over and done with. The supply chain constraints at OEM are now at a very critical stage and there is a huge backlog. Any more customsation will make it even worse. LH is now parking their brand new B787 cause their OEM is now making their new J class Allegris fast enough. If you can't win on hard products, just make sure your soft products are damn good. Service delivery and recovery is something that MH can set itself apart from the others. Flight cancellation, and delay management can be much better. Yes, with the living cost hiking exponentially, even the Singaporeans find it hard to survive in their own country. A lot of them are now staying in Johor and take a daily ride to work in SG. MH junior cabin crew's pay starts with the minimum wage back in 2019 if I can recall well. Did an interview with an ex-cabin crew before when she applied to my ex-employer. How would you survive with minimum wage with limited international route network, even with that you only have 24 hours layover. Some cabin crew supplement their income by helping their friends and relatives buy overseas stuff. You need to do this discreetly, else you will be called for disciplinary action. But I don't blame them for doing so. CX has poached quite a number of MH cabin crew recently (not that CX is the best place to work now, but CX is desperate now to scale up their operation. CX is also poaching SQ, DD, XJ, FD, TG, SL crew), SQ poaching MH is given but I think they have stopped now post pandemic they have enough crew for the moment. Many MH senior and well-seasoned engineers have left too in recent years. Middle East, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are just a short flight away. It is not a wonder MH is losing talent left, right and center. Come later this year EK will be doing global hiring spree, the situation will get even worse. The woe will continue as airlines placed a collective 3,408 new net orders last year. I sure hope MH has a good talent game plan for next ten years. On the other side of the debate, we would be asking ourselves how much is enough is enough. The ME3 can afford to pay five figures salary with almost all free medical, accommodation and education for their staff, can MAG afford to do so? ME3 also rely on cheap labours from India subcontinent for behind the scene operation. Will MAG able to do so?

Based on what we have experienced with MH all these years, MH will not invest big money in fleet which are leaving. MH will run the fleet down till bare bones.

Unfortunately the newer aircraft are not built for high cycle and utilisation rate compared to the older generation aircraft. Heck, we even have 10 years old A321/A330 went for scrappers, no thanks to the high production rate by both Airbus and Boeing for newer gen aircraft. On the MASKargo, it is a sad case. They have been neglected for the past decade. I remember once they were one of the biggest Asian air cargo carrier, up there with CX, KE, BR, SQ and OZ. Those days when they had at least six B742F, two B744 and the sole A300B4.

Yes, the A330P2F has been in existence since 2012, a collaboration between ST Aerospace, Airbus and their joint venture EFW. The main conversion site is Dresden, Germany. Another site is Shanghai, China in JV with Shanghai Technologies Aerospace Company. The third site will be in Istanbul, Turkey JV with Turkish Technic. Currently Dresden site is mainly converting those HNA Group's brand new A330-300 which they did not take delivery due to financial issue, ex-Thai Airways A330-300 and some others. The site in Shanghai is converting those A330-300 airframes used by China-based airlines. The big three + HNA Group collectively operate more than 200 A330ceo family. That is a lot of feedstock for the conversion line. To answer your question, yes it has a side cargo door retrofitted just before the 2L door, plugged door and windows and also strengthened ribs and floor. In order to counter the "slanting" A330 issue, Airbus created a fully-powered Cargo Loading System (CLS) that is capable of loading/unloading even the heaviest pallets even if the aircraft on "tilt" for A330P2F. Currently there are 37 A330P2F (13 A332P2F and 24 A333P2F) flying now or currently undergoing conversion, with around 30 in the pipeline for conversion.

Yes, and only Delta Airlines, Korean Air and China Southern Airlines use major PW engines now for A330-300s. MH's A332F are now at abt 13 years old, ain't spring chicken any more. They should be planning for its replacement since the lead time for new fleet is very long now. A350F is sold out till 2026.

PW-engine A330P2F is not desirable in the P2F market though, majority of those converted ones are RR--powered. They are only three PW-engine A330P2F in the market (one ex-LTU, ex-TG, one ex-MH) and those are in MSN100+/200+ range.

Yes, they are in significant financial duress in the recent years after splurging on new fleet, new product and services and massive network expansion without proper evaluation in order to fight with big boys next door, EK, EY, and QR a.k.a expansion at all cost. They went on buying spree a new fleet of B737max/B787 when their B737NG/A330 fleet are still very young by industry standard. They were/are just like some government-run airline which profit/loss isn't an issue until the reality hits them hard. Now losing out on South Asia markets to EK and QR, they are trying to reinventing themselves. South Asia is the main feeder for many ME airlines.