geoff.leo

On 8th March, they knew for sure that the last confirmed fix of MH370 was at IGARI, over the South China Sea. It made sense to immediately deploy massive search operations to that area. At the same time, the RMAF, having immediately done a radar playback, had a suspicion that MH370 may actually have turned west towards the Straits of Malacca. They needed time to confirm this. But to completely ignore the Straits of Malacca until the results came in would have been silly. So naturally, they would also deploy a few assets initially to scan the Straits of Malacca. And they did just that, if you recall. So, how is that an issue? And put it this way, if something did crash into the world's busiest shipping lane (and a damn narrow one), you don't need 100 ships and aircraft to go looking for it. Of course as fresh information trickled in from Inmarsat, focus then shifted further out towards the Andaman, Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. By that time, they were 100% sure it wasn't in the South China Sea or the Straits of Malacca. In summary, they covered all grounds with whatever information they had at different stages. They did the right thing. Amazing how one can dig up old news, twist it around, and turn it into a revelation. As to the "revelation" that the aircraft skirted Indonesian airspace. Duh. So? From the Inmarsat arcs a few weeks back, that was pretty obvious, wasn't it? How is that news, CNN? As to transparency. Can one really believe that so many countries would deploy a vast array of their most sophisticated equipment if the Malaysian authorities weren't transparent? There are pre-assumptions about how badly run the Malaysian government is, and for the most part rightly so. But to use those presumptions as justification for making simple conclusions in a highly complex matter such as MH370 is naïve. There was a big gorilla in the room banging the table asking for answers, pushing a far weaker kind to quickly find the aeroplane. Funny how the gorilla, with the world's largest military, has turned into a gentle panda in recent weeks. Time to eat humble pie, or bamboo in this case. Not so easy finding a missing airplane huh, China?

Personally, I think it's difficult to say if the RMAF did the right thing, or was wrong not to do anything. We know that the last ATC transmission from Lumpur to MH370 was at 1:19am. We also know that the transponder was presumably shut off shortly thereafter, at 1:21am, as that was the time it disappeared off civilian radar. MH370 was over the FIR boundary between Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh at this point. They had a positive handoff from Lumpur but Ho Chi Minh never heard them. These things happen everyday. Negative radar contact, negative voice contact. It happens. All the time. All over world. No cause for alarm. Ho Chi Minh, who would be expecting MH370, would make several attempts on the VHF frequency to contact them. After several tries, the norm would be to ask any traffic in the vicinity to relay a message to MH370. Other traffic would try contacting them on the VHF frequency for that area, or 121.5, the universal on-guard frequency. The controller may even try contacting MH370 on other published VHF or HF frequencies for the Ho Chi Minh FIR. In parallel, the Ho Chi Minh controller would contact his Lumpur counterpart. One can imagine him asking "are you sure MH370 acknowledged your handoff and you had him on your radar?". And Lumpur, I'd imagine would say yes, all was good and normal. So now the Ho Chi Minh guy is really confused. Nothing on the radar, nobody can contact him on whatever frequency, yet all was ok with Lumpur just seconds before he was supposed to talk to Ho Chi Minh Control. And no emergency squawks either. It's important at this juncture to keep in mind that both Ho Chi Minh and Lumpur do not have the benefit of hindsight. You do not expect an aircraft to just vanish, without any emergency squawks. And the minutes are ticking by. Confusion sets in. Imagine if you were a Ho Chi Minh controller. Lumpur told him he's here but he isn't. No signs of distress. He could be ANYWHERE in my airspace. But WHERE? And then imagine if you were a Lumpur controller. Ho Chi Minh can't see or talk to him, but it sure was ok when I talked to him. Surely he's SOMEWHERE in Ho Chi Minh FIR. I'd be a blind man to miss an emergency squawk on my screen if he came back in. MH370 has to be in Ho Chi Minh airspace. Many minutes have now passed. Both have now exhausted their resources and it's time to push the panic button. Activate SAR? Never mind, lets buzz the military in Gong Kedak (presumably). It's important at this juncture to remember that military IFF primary radar only raises an alarm if you're identified as a positive threat. A commercial aircraft with its transponder turned off (important here to note that they did not know this yet at this point in time) isn't necessarily a threat. I'm no military expert, but I would assume there would be different levels of alert. In short, for a peacetime country like Malaysia, and with no intelligence reports of threats against the country, the military would at most times, be at a lower level of alert. In other words, you're not gonna eyeball every aircraft passing through Malaysia like a hawk. So you ring the RMAF controller, and on his radar, all he sees are friendly commercial "blips". Even at that time of the night, the skies over Peninsula Malaysia, the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea are busy with lots of traffic going in all sorts of direction. The Lumpur controller tells his RMAF controller to look for something, but has zero idea of where the aircraft is. Seriously dude, says the RMAF controller, you gotta tell me something. I've got blips everywhere. You can only tell me the last known position, which was donkeys minutes ago, you think he's in Ho Chi Minh airspace but want me to check anyway without knowing where he's coming from and no hint where he's going to? Lumpur says, dude, we have nothing! At this juncture, it's important to note the aircraft's trajectory towards the Straits of Malacca also crossed substantial parts of Southern Thailand. As such, it may gone in and out of RMAF's radar coverage intermittently. It's an assumption since we won't know how far is the extent of RMAF's coverage. So while the RMAF is trying to pick out a blip, the aircraft at this point in time, may or may not be under his coverage. And with so many friendly blips in the sky, where do you start? But the RMAF looks anyway. Surely if MH370 came back, it should appear somewhere by now around the Kelantan or Northern Peninsula. The situation is well and truly out of control at this stage. Nobody in RMAF's other control centres, presumably Penang, Kuantan or Subang would have known if MH370 came under their primary radar. Who in the world that night would have looked all the way to the other side west of the peninsula, close to Sumatra for MH370, just one of many friendly blips? Of course we now know after investigation that MH370's final blip on the military's radar was at 2:15am. All this was happening in less than 1 hour from the time of the last ATC transmission with Lumpur. Sounds like a long time when you're lying comfortably on the sofa. But nothing more than a blink when all that is happening. The RMAF never stood a chance of scrambling their fighters in time.

There's a lot of bad journalism out there. And so far most of the "experts" that have appeared on the international news networks have delivered a whole lot of rubbish. Then again, these news networks are just doing their job. Filling the airtime and keeping the layman glued to the TV is the primary job. Accuracy and relevance comes second. If you were to bring a B777 pilot on air with a good knowledge of operating around Southeast Asia, a lot of these theories would be shot down in a blink.

To Hishamuddin and co., please produce a report in black and white, laying out the sequence and timeline of confirmed and verified information to the public, of whatever has been released so far. And if there's a finding which involves complicated technical explanation, e.g. the satellite pings, give a detailed explanation in black and white. This can either be sent as press releases or put on the MOT's website at a reasonable time before a scheduled press conference. This way, you give the press and public sufficient time to study and digest the information. And then during the press conferences, journalists would be able to ask more relevant questions. And you lower the risk of being accused of contradictory and confusing remarks. Impression counts. The bad impression you're giving is belittling the good work I'm sure you and the rest of the team are doing.

Perhaps it's time to consider the larger South China Sea area, east of Vietnam / Peninsula Malaysia. The possibility of the aircraft somehow straying west unnoticed across Northern Malaysia and/or Southern Thailand in the middle of the night and ending up in either the Straits of Malacca, the Andaman or worst case, the fringes of the Indian Ocean cannot be discounted. However, that's a fair bit of radar environment to escape. The Andaman and Straits of Malacca are also busy shipping lanes and aren't too far from many coastal settlements in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and even Myanmar if you want to expand the scope. As I mentioned, though the probability is low, it cannot be discounted. But having said that, if the aircraft can stray west, it can also stray east. And east means deep into the South China Sea. A huge part of the South China Sea is beyond the reach of either Ho Chi Minh, Lumpur or Singapore radars. Of course all 3 FIRs provided datalink services. But assuming then, that somehow the CPDLC, ADS, ACARS, or anything remotely capable of transmitting anything from the aircraft all failed or were cut off from the aircraft, it takes a 777 less than an hour to stray into the non-radar environment region of the South China Sea from IGARI. And with an estimated 6 to 7 hours of endurance left, it had more than enough fuel to go seriously very far east. That is a much larger area to search, several times bigger than the combined size of the current search areas. The current search areas are relatively shallow, reportedly no more than 100m in depth. But further east, the South China Sea seaboard terrain gets extremely steep, and you're looking at depths of up to 4km here. The authorities have announced that they are expanding their search further east of IGARI. If they can't find clues within this expanded area east of IGARI and have to go much further east into the region I mentioned, then I think the scale of the SAR operations would have to be increased massively from the already huge number of assets we see being deployed. And this would potentially mean a very, very long wait. I hope it doesn't get to that stage, and clues will be found within the current area of operations. That was the rational side of me. The irrational side of me wants to believe that no news is still somewhat better than bad news. May they be still be waiting out there, somewhere, somehow.

It's a sign of the times. Perhaps more could have been done in the past to develop their US market, but even then, the US market was always going to be tough for a Southeast Asian carrier in this day and age. It's going to be a highly unpopular decision. And the sad thing is, the same arm chair critics who bash MAS for constantly making losses will also give them stick for making a tough but sensible decision such as this. This decision is a good one. But now, more than ever, MAS needs to leverage on Oneworld.

Brisbane is a tricky one for MAS. Unlike Sydney and Melbourne, KUL-BNE doesn't have strong local traffic. MAS' existing daily morning departure from KUL is alright for Europe-BNE connections but not the other way round, save for LHR which has a daytime departure out of KUL. Good for connection to MAS' Asian network though. And sufficient to cater to the local KUL-BNE vv market. To capitalize fully on the Europe-BNE-Europe market, an evening departure out of KUL is needed. And this is the tricky bit. The KUL-BNE market isn't big enough to sustain a daily evening departure from KUL, hence the danger of over-reliance on transit traffic to Europe. This flight will also not be good for Asian connections as the flight would be timed arrive back in KUL around 2000-2100hrs. Even if MAS goes ahead with a daily evening KUL departure, the aircraft sits on the tarmac for a good 7-9 hours, all for the sake of ensuring good connection timings to Europe in KUL. Some suggested that the idle time in BNE could be used for a tag on to New Zealand. That won't work. It's at least 3 hours on BNE-AKL/CHC and close to 4 hours on the return leg because of the strong jet streams over the Tasman. Including the ground turnaround times, you need at least 11 hours to comfortably operate this route. And if you're thinking of local BNE-NZ rights, even if MAS still has it, all the best in competing in the trans-Tasman market. MAS wouldn't have any backers with the Emirates-Qantas alliance. There's also Virgin Australia and Air NZ. Not a battle worth taking all for the sake of aircraft utilization. SIA's aircrafts in BNE spend much less ground time as they have 2 daily evening departures out of SIN, which gives them 2 day departures out of BNE. But even SIA took many years to achieve this level of economic scale for BNE. And to top it off, there's Emirates' massive BNE operations. It's all about picking the right battles. IMO, this one isn't worth it.

Surely the issue of pilot shortage on the B738 can be easily overcome with the huge number of jobless CPL holders in Malaysia. Alternatively - though this is a long shot - go South and exploit the excess pilot (FO) situation in SIA. As for aircraft shortage, exercise the remaining options for the B738 and start looking at the MAX for future growth and replacement.

Auckland: Increase evening departures out of KUL. Still the best timing for connections in KUL. Perth: Make it full double-daily A333. May even consider a new third daily midnight departure from KUL using B738s. Sydney and Melbourne: Good work on the expansion. Buy more A380s and put them on the double-daily evening departures out of KUL. Sydney and Melbourne are rare cities where MAS can afford to be aggressive and yet still have a good chance of succeeding. Australia and NZ in general: Lots have been said about the relationship between MAS and Qantas. It's stupid and daft. Work together. Both are losing out by doing otherwise. On the part of MAS, it's losing out a lot in secondary Australian and New Zealand cities. Jakarta: Mount wide body aircraft for peak morning and evening rush hour flights. Indonesia: However complicated the reason for getting out of Surabaya, MAS needs to get back there pronto. Consider 4-5 weekly services to Bandung, Balikpapan and Makassar. Southeast Asia: Cebu and Chiang Mai could be worth a look. Penang surely can sustain at least 1 daily flight to Singapore. Hong Kong: Too much variance in product offering with 1 daily A380 and the rest of the daily flights being served by B738s. Not acceptable for a premium and popular destination. More A333s needed here, what's more with slots becoming dearer at HKIA. Shanghai: Third daily flight needed for evening departure out of KUL. And for the future, with more A380s, mount the A380 for the morning departure. Good for A380 aircraft untilization. Beijing: Silly to take away the morning departure from KUL. Bring it back. Potential future A380 station with worsening slot issues. Rest of China: Poor presence in some very important secondary Chinese cities. Chengdu, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Wuhan, among others, can be served with the B738. MAS should have been in these cities by now. Continue to expand the code-share agreement with China Southern - Guangzhou is the best feeder hub for MAS in China. Japan: It beggars belief how much Malaysia has missed out on Haneda slots. Hugely disappointing that none of the stakeholders, be it the Malaysian government or the airlines, seem to care at all. Capacity should also be increased at Narita to exploit more opportunities with JAL on it's Domestic, Pacific and North American networks. India: Consider upgrading Mumbai and Delhi flights to double-daily wide body flights. Re-enter Kolkata, this time with B738s. Trichy and Trivandrum should also be worth a look. Middle East: Increase partnership with fellow Oneworld member Qatar Airways. Africa: Again, work with Qatar Airways here to complement existing code-share agreements. Johannesburg should be re-considered. A 3- or 4- weekly Johannesburg-Cape Town route might work. Amsterdam: Should be an A380 station if only MAS had more aircraft. Continue the partnership with KLM. Frankfurt: Make it a daily B772 flight. Good move working with AA out of Frankfurt, and Paris-CDG too for that matter. Paris-CDG: Excellent. Keep it up. Expand on more Oneworld opportunities. London-Heathrow: Consider a third daily flight with retrofitted B772s. Move to Terminal 3 as soon as possible to gain more from Oneworld's number one hub. Talk to British Airways for code-share agreements to North America, for which BA is simply unmatched in it's network. At the same time, expand on the cooperation with AA. Europe: Heathrow's location makes it a lousy European feeder hub for MAS. Amsterdam is better but is really good only for Western and Northern Europe. MAS has zero presence now in South, East, Central Europe and Russia. Unfortunately, AMS and LHR won't work for these regions owing to their geographical location. Qatar Airways has a sizeable presence in these regions not served by MAS. Consider building a virtual network through a partnership with Qatar Airways, similar to what Virgin Australia has done with SIA without mounting their own metal. South America: Consider code-share agreements with LAN/LATAM out of their flights from Europe, Sydney or Auckland. North America: Retrofit the B772s and make NRT-LAX a daily flight to have any meaningful presence at all. Continue to build on recently concluded code-share agreements with Oneworld partner AA on codeshares out of MAS' existing Oneworld destinations. Go one step ahead and do the same with JAL and BA. Qatar Airways, with it's increasing North American network, is also worth a look. Here's a wish, which unfortunately will remain as one: MAS in New York-JFK.

MAS' network - both current and for the foreseeable future - can't justify the B77W and B777-9X. It's too big of an investment to have another fleet, without having a network of great economic scale, for the purpose of developing "thinner" routes. Besides, with a MTOW of 351t, it's not exactly a small aircraft, is it? If they hadn't committed to the A380 years ago, the B777-9X would have made sense, similar to the future strategy being pursued by Cathay Pacific. So in summary for MAS, it's either the B777-9X or the A380. Not both. As for their current B772s, they are badly in need of a long-overdue retrofit to bring them up to at least the standard of their A380s and A333s. And if they do, they need to change the horrible 2-5-2 configuration to a 3-3-3. The B772 is of course less efficient compared to the A350. But seeing MAS' circumstances, the B772 is still a very able aircraft for long-haul routes that can't sustain an A380. Retrofitting them would be a worthwhile investment. Assuming that MAS would miss A350 delivery slots for the first 4-5 years of production, it is the best interim solution. Another option would be to start leasing A350s from those leasing firms with early A350 delivery slots while waiting for their future own A350s. MAS needs the A350 as it's future wide body workhorse replacing the current A333s and B772s.

The B777X isn't the right aircraft for MAS' mode of operations. The B787 on the other hand, is a little too small. What they really need moving forward is the A350, which can do the job of both the A333 and B772ER. A mix of -900s and -1000s (and in between them derated thrust versions for regional operations) would be ideal. An airline the size of MAS lacks the scale to support too many fleet types. They had better start looking into the B737 MAX / A320 Neo too for their narrow-body operations. They should also be able to justify maybe 5 or 6 more A380s. B737 MAX / A320 Neo, A350, A380. In my opinion, that's the ideal future fleet for MAS.

The problem with Tigerair and Scoot was that individually, their brand power has always been far weaker than that of the AirAsia group. And it's the same story for NokAir in Thailand. The joint venture in Thailand will only exacerbate this problem. SIA, unfortunately, has yet to figure out how to run Tigerair with sustainable and consistent operational profitability. In the medium/long-haul low-cost market, if successful AirAsia is taking a long time to achieve consistent profitability with AirAsia X, you can expect the situation to be much worse for SIA with respect to Scoot. Successful foreign franchises/JVs like AirAsia work because they do so only after having built a solid foundation at home. Tigerair never achieved that. Scoot will take even longer. Which is why all of Tigerair's foreign forays have been disappointing. The SIA group is again deploying the same tactics now with Scoot, with yet another sub-brand in NokAir. You get the impression at the end of the day, that the SIA group continues to do "something" for the sake of not being seen as doing nothing in the low-lost market. They clearly haven't got a clue of what they're doing.

If both BA and QF could justify making a return to KUL using their own metal, they would have done so. No need for all the courting from MAHB. For the foreseeable future, a code-share with MAS is as close as we'll ever get in seeing BA and QF back in KUL.