Mohd. Helmi

I disagree about Langkawi being second fiddle. It's like comparing oranges and apples. If I was to party, I'd go to Bali, let's be honest, that's the main reason why rowdy young Aussies go there in the first place. If I was however wanting a place to chill out on a beach, Langkawi is definitely it for me. Different geography, different cultures, different religions, different facilities, the 2 islands are very different, Bali is real magnet for backpackers, whilst Langkawi appeals more to a different crowd, a more laid back relaxing, older sort of crowd. Forget about whining and pressuring airlines to come back to Langkawi, that's just not sustainable running routes that aren't profitable. What really needs to be done is to market Langkawi more effectively. If there is demand, the international flights will follow.

Daily flights? hmm, we're talking about students here not business men, they're more concerned about fares rather than timings and daily schedules. MH never offered daily to CAI if I'm not mistaken, thrice weekly was it? Students fly cattle class on the most rock bottom fares they can find, not the kind of business that brings in the dosh, especially the kind of dosh that MH needs. Besides the airlines above, SQ fly to CAI, not to mention IY and KU, whilst also serving KUL, don't know about prices or how good the connections are but SQ might be reasonable. Perhaps "red is ours" Whining Cheapo Airlines might see it as a market for them instead of MH??

It was a QandA session with Malaysian students, so I honestly believe he was pandering to the audience and politicking. Politicians are interesting creatures, they'll promise you the moon if that's what you wanted to hear. Overseas Students being students, thus generally pretty broke, they would have really wanted to hear MAS coming back to Cairo, have nonstop flights to the tanah air and better still cheap fares, good old DPM delivered to the audience.

I'm not a big fan of MH tunes, reminds me of elevator-ish music. V boring. AK tunes, sounds like straight out of some pop hitz that gets over played on the radio, you know the kind that all the tweens go for, know the lyrics by heart, sorry but it's just not my thing. Back when Tyrolean Air was still flying about, they played "St Germain", a track from the "tourist" album for boarding. It was quite a surprise for 2 reasons, 1 it wasn't some corporate elevator music, or even worse tacky Austrian yodel, 2 it was a group that I really like being played! Made my trip! Now that's a good boarding music! Something relaxing, something chilled out. Usually however, I recommend getting an mp3 player, ipod, discman/walkman what have you and create your own boarding music. Pretty nice to board and blast off with Felix da housecat or John Coltrane, Sebelius (whatever does it for you) tunes in the background. It's especially nice to drown out potential babies wailing away, or satan's monkey next to you with the most urgent and pressing need for a uvulopalatopharyngoplasty procedure as the sound from his snorring get's to the point of being louder than those shiny turbofans on the left wing! Anyways since were talking about AK here, I see further down the line, in the V. near future, that they'll use much more ads in place of boarding music. Soon you'll be boarding to jiggles of the latest pantyliner or deodorant. That's so the next cheap thing that AK is bound to do.

When 2 businesses cooperate, usually it's at the expense of customers, not for their benefit. Collusion, fare fixing and the likes, airlines have gotten fined for this sort of behavior in some parts of the world. I sincerely hope MH don't cooperate with AK, it'll be the end of low fares as we know it.

About time too!! The airline business is another bastion of protectionism in this country, just like the car industry, the rice industry and a few others. To get efficient and competitive, the market desperately needs to be liberalized. Liberalization means competition not just for MH but also for AK! I'd love to see another Malaysian full service carrier competing with MH, or another low cost carrier fighting it out with AK. Look what happens with government intervention, AK was given RAS to only cock it up, MH made to fly unprofitable routes. Leave it to the market to decide. I've said this many times over, the gahmen shouldn't meddle in the airline market, they'll only create inefficiencies.

Anyone been on the 747SP that they send to KUL? How much are their fares, competitive or not?? I've always wondered what 30 yr old aircraft smells like inside, what it feels like to fly in.

When did I quote 169? Nope no sale..

No problems with me just now. \ hmm.. they have 1Mil tickets being given out, the booking period is until 19th May. you can always try tomorrow?

Sorry, I'm probably going to get flamed here, but I don't think MAS is going the LCC way. They still have assigned seating, lounges (which have been given upgrades, e.g. regional lounge at the contact pier), a business class, a first class, FFP, IFE, and unless that all disappears, they're not even close to being an LCC or following the LCC path. The only thing that hold your argument about them becoming an LCC are their fantastic RM0 tickets, ohh... and snek boxes (even that, its only offered in regionals and still trying to gauge responses, the boxes are designed quite nicely which I doubt an LCC would've even bothered with such packaging). Death of MH brand identity, I doubt it. In fact, if they do this correctly, they could bring in some new passengers who have never flown MH and might in the future be able to afford MH fares as an alternative (read: University Students, Mak Ciks who'll make it big exporting keropok to Tajikistan), heck they can easily win some over with MH service, especially with the civilized boarding procedures, the attention to detail and all the other frills so lacking in AK. MH has never been an option to a lot of the flying public, what better way to promote the brand than giving ordinary mat's and beng's the ability to fly them once in a while. I'm stoked about the low MH fares! What I'm wondering is why MH didn't use Firefly as their vehicle for RM0 fares? Why the intense media coverage?

Competition is good for us isn't it, good for the consumer. If someone told me 10 years ago that MH tickets were going for RM0 (albeit excluding taxes and surcharges) you could be accused to being a nut case bordering demented insanity. But 10 years ago wasn't MH badly leaking red like a punctured rusted paint can? Now at least on paper, they're profitable. So bless AK and all the competitors out there for making this happen.

2:49 minutes to go... hope MH website can handle the load.

Whoops, will try midnight..

I was curious how cheap connecting with LCC's could go. And since you plan to go in August, some cheap fares out there. It looks interesting, if I had plenty of time, I'd think about doing them, stop for a day or 2 at the connecting places, perhaps take direct home? Anyways, ALL fares that I'm quoting are including taxes and surcharges. Air Asia KUL-OOL 898.00 MYR Jetstar OOL-CHC 613.390 MYR Total 1511.39 Air Asia KUL-OOL 898.00 MYR take the QR train from Nerang Station, Gold Coast up to Brisbane Airport (it's a direct train, with luggage racks) Virgin Blue BNE-AKL 704.584 MYR Total 1602.584 Air Asia KUL-SIN 122.50 MYR (or cheaper, you could take a bus/KTM) Tiger Air SIN-MEL 844.782 MYR Virgin Blue MEL-AKL 1,029.11 MYR Total 1996.39 Jetstar KUL-SYD $1,124.36 Virgin Blue SYD-BNE Pacific Blue BNE-AKL 881.638 MYR Total 2005.998 As for RBA, they do offer cheap flights, but I'm wary of them. Connection timings are bad, I've spent 7 hours bored out of my mind at BWN airport and the connecting flight to Aus departed late because they were waiting for more connecting passengers from another flight, also my flight with them was red eye, same as yours as pieter has shown, arrival at 0255. But, they are cheap.

yah... would explain it, Samak is also Thailand's defense minister. Anyways, seems like a down to earth guy, made a unscheduled visit to a market in KL to see how much Malaysians are paying for food items, to calculate cost of living differences with the Thai's, good on the guy for taking a commercial flight. Perhaps he can tell our pm there's no need to purchase airbusCJ's for official visits.. hahahaa.

MH SQ hmm.. To take cue from AF-KLM, you have to remember that they have a common market, there's a sense of belonging to a Euro identity, it took 50 years or so from the treaty of Rome for them to achieve where they are today. But 50 years ago I really doubt the Dutch would be happy with a bunch of frogs merging with KLM, even now with pan European corporate identities taking root, there are some that are unhappy. This all said, we aren't a common market with Singapore, we haven't put aside national differences to work together. The only way for this to work is if ASEAN became something more than political talking piece. Or perhaps if Singapore comes back to the sexy bosom of Malaysia, (didn't mentor minister mention the prerequisites for this to happen?). Nice idea, SQ is a well managed and run company, something that MH needs to get back on track..... if it wasn't for politicians determining how the airline should be run, I doubt SQ would even be interested.

hhaaahh... how about when a bunch of spotters caught badawi's new baby airbusCJ in Europe, kicked up a fuss with rumors of him buying a VVIP jet , in his defense, I think he said something along the lines of "the government didn't buy the aircraft, we're leasing it from PMB". Here's a little joke, some of you might have already heard it before, it's not the exact wording, but it goes something like; Do you know when a politician is lying? Punch line: It's when their mouths are moving.

I disagree, if a company can see a profit by building infrastructure, then they should be the one building it. The government building that infrastructure, you'll see it time and time again around the world, they'll be much more wasteful with public funds, you'll see the private money being more efficient, after all it's their money. The government spends other people's money. Yes, this is what ticked me off reading that article. It is corruption! IF YTL and Co think ERL will be a profitable venture, then they should proceed, but definately without public money in the form of taxes. If it's not viable. Don't build it. Why do I have to pay in the form of my taxes for some shmuck to ride ERL, for ERL to make a profit!

Yup, thats true, the white cards for entering Malaysia is a thing of the past! The US and Canada are both developed countries, high income countries. Especially now, where the Canadian loonie was some months ago a little stronger than the US greenback. Malaysia on the other hand is developing and Singapore is developed. To make a comparison of US - Canada is just not right, a better comparison is US - Mexico, its more similar on the development stage of the 2 countries for comparison. Albeit we don't have the people wading through the rio grande trying to get to the land of the rich, we do however have Malaysian factory workers, cleaners, service people who commute across the causeway everyday to make a living earning the valuable sing dollar. Once you have countries of similar level of economic development you'll find crossing the borders to be less of a pain, like US-Canada. The EC countries prior to Maastricht and after, with the EU.

My guess is SYD? Is the next plane on the bottom an SIA 747?

Last year AK canceled my KCH flight and I was put on the next flight to KCH, nothing to do but get bored at that tin shed they called a terminal. Return to KUL, the flight was delayed. This year my AK flights to BKI was perfect and on time. Next flight with AK is in 2 months to LGK. Should be interesting to see their on time performance. From my experience, it's the LCC's that have a problem with on time performance, perhaps just my rotten luck. For example DJ was delayed for 3 hrs, 1.5 of those hours was stuck in the DJ plane on the tarmac at OOL, almost missed by connection at SYD. OS was delayed and canceled in VIE but that was snow related.

My list from the top of my head... Malaysia Airlines DC10-40/737-400/500/747-400/777-200 Air Asia A320 Singapore Airlines 757/777-200 Royal Brunei 767-300 Japan Airlines 747 (? not sure what series) Qantas 747-400/767-300 Virgin Blue 737-700/800 KLM 747-400M Austrian 777-200/A321 Austrian Wings Q400 Tyrolean Q400 Lauda Air 737 Malev Hungarian Airlines 737/CRJ Croatia Airlines 737-200

No lah, not business psyche, Petronas as an example is a Fortune 500 multinational and a GLC, a very well run business, if the problem was business psyche it would be another Pertamina, our companies can and do compete globally. I think you misunderstand, rather what I was trying to get at is that the root of the problem is actually social, which requires collective political will. Our society is one of great expectations and ambitions, it all blurs the lines of business and politics. Why do you think MH still flies to Newark, Buenos Aires? If Jala had his way, I'm sure more routes would be axed. I think Malaysia is being dragged through economic realities kicking and screaming, however old ways are slowly changing, by the time my generation gets into power becoming MP's and ministers.. muahhahahahahah.. who knows. But currently, this is still not the case, the demands and ambitions of our society is still trying to be met and dictated through businesses. People still want to see the flag carrier in NY, boastfully on all 6 continents, people aren't willing to pay the true price of petrol (you Singaporeans shouldn't complain about that), basic food prices are still needed to be kept artificially low, Proton being our pet national project, I actually can go on and on. I believe the role of the government is governance, not dictating and running business enterprises, my view. As a Malaysian, I think it's fair to say we Malaysians all have high hopes for MAS to be successful, probably even those of us who engage in MH bashing, it is our national carrier, that still means something to us, it's also perhaps one of the reasons why MH FA's are so darn good, because they carry the sense of what MAS means to the ordinary folk. Such idealism and romanticism are probably long gone in more developed and some what cynical parts of the world. And as how MH is right now, with the BTP's, FSVC, whatever abbreviations they will come up next, I'm a discerning paying individual, it takes more that national aspirations to get my business, which is why I haven't flown them in years and my next couple of flights this year are with AK and LH. I still wish them well..

From what I've read so far, CCTV was not even turned on at KLIA at the spot where the action took place. Robbers took away the police issued gun from off duty policeman. And only now the government is going to put up 24 hours armed men at KLIA as a response?? Gosh, talk about doing something when it's already too late. The robbers were so daring, because they knew they could get away with it, the lack of visible police presence is like an invitation card to these crooks, they spotted an easy target. Anyways, the only time I remember seeing the men in blue at KLIA, is when they pat me down because the main metal detectors beeped before going to the departure gate and lounge, even then those guys were armed only with those puny waving hand held metal detectors, really not much of a deterrence. A sharp contrast to those Police NS men with big guns all over the place in Changi.

Wait, were they rent a cop security guards or police? Because it seems like rent a cop guys to me from the article, also an off duty policeman happened to be there and he shot back??? So really that begs the question, where were the on duty guys that are supposed to protect??????... Security guard presence is one thing, but they can't beat having the authorities in authority in force patrolling visibly. Like I said before compared to Singapore, I hardly see the men in blue at KUL.