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PETALING JAYA: Jetstar Asia is offering 88,000 free seats for travel between July 1 to March 25 from Singapore to four local destinations. This offer to celebrate the launch of its Penang service ends on Wednesday. The Singapore-based low-cost carrier will be starting daily flights from the republic to Penang from July 1, marking the airline’s 17th destination and fourth Malaysian route. The other three routes are from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. Jetstar offers flights to 17 destinations in 10 countries within five hours from the Lion City. With a new Airbus A320 to be purchased in October, Jetstar would also double the number of its Singapore-Penang flights, chief executive officer Chong Phit Lian said in a statement yesterday. The free-seat promotion excludes airport taxes, administrative and insurance charges. For enquiries, call 800-6167-017 (24-hour call centre) or visit www.jetstar.com. Source: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?f...&sec=nation

Yes, you are right, of course! What I should have said is "unofficial sources", since MH is not exactly generous with the correct and up to date information on their official website.

A real shame that we can't get information from the horse's mouth but have to rely on "rumours" instead. MH's Marcom department needs to wake up!

Does that mean going first to A333 and then onto A388 when it arrives?

I thought Darwin was dropped too. But it is still on the MH timetables... I also wonder if Captn Radzi will be flying one of these new birds and how they are to fly compared to the outgoing B734's.

You can check the B738 flights at the timetable section of MH website: http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/bkin...-timetable.aspx I note an interesting flight that will commence in 15 June: To Darwin (DRW) 0725* KUL 1020* MH137 738 CY

I think that they are also a low cost HR department. Chasing employees for their bank account to be opened is not a very smart or efficient task to perform. So even in recruitment, AirAsia is already applying its economy measures. Staff must be low cost to manage too!

This is what I got from MH: D7 gave me this - I missed the RM 101 tickets:

From D7 source:

You might want to check this out: http://www.planespotters.net/Airline/Malaysia-Airlines I don't think they are fully up to date either!

Perhaps, but it will mean two flights instead of one. So maybe Firefly might be a better bet...

Oh bummer! It is always best to take a direct flgiht and right now only Firefly and AirAsia flies JHB-PEN direct! Well if you book early enough, Firefly has the RM0 fare available (RM 70 inclusive of taxes, insurance and admin fee) while AirAsia has RM 29 fares available. Yes, the wheelchair bound people will find it very inconvenient!

If you are flying from JHB to PEN it is probably best to stick with MH to avoid any possible problems.

MH uses a B744 for its direct flights and they take around 4 hrs 35 mins. They also have services via BKI using a B734 and the flights are nearly 7 hours. The D7 A333 flights are scheduled to take 5 hours. D7 is finding negotiations with the Japanese authorities tough going and have given up on starting services to Japan this year. Japanese insist that D7 must use JAL/ANA ground services and that means it will be expensive. My guess is that if D7 is planning to go to the US, it will probably try to extend its London flights to New York.

They have advertised that they are using "brand new" A333's in their Red Alert newsletter. My guess is that they might deploy the A343 to some of the PER flights and that will free the A333 for the TPE flights. Those trial flights earlier this year on XAB surely must have a purpose!

XAA is back in service - so the three aircraft are doing the Australia and China routes. The Malaysian meals provided on the OOL-KUL leg were horrible. There was much chat about that onboard (on the IFE system) and some people actually had tummy discomfort! So it may be better to order western/international meal if the plane is not flying out of LCCT! XAB will be reconfigured next year and they are looking at lie flat seats for the XL section. Not sure what the other seats will be. My guess is that they will have more comfortable seats than the A333.

Mohd. Helmi, I won't dwell into Maybank, etc. cos that is really off topic. I used them as examples to illustrate the fact that MH should not have thoughts of going on the M&A trail unless they have a competent team to manage those acquisitions. It is better they use the cash for fleet renewal, product improvements, and also to hire professional and competent management personnel. Well AK did a good job with AWAIR and they have more or less completed their transformation to become Indonesia Air Asia. Now they just need to get rid of the 20+ year old 737's as their new A320's are delivered.

Well years of neglect (MH has postponed their wide body aircraft acquisition plans again) of their fleet has led to this. What can MH fight back with? I guess only in flight service! :sorry:

Although the seat pitch is 31", the seat cannot recline and one cannot be comfortable in the upright position. Using the seat's sliding mechanism reduces the legroom. In some ways, the A320's seats are better and I understand that the new A333's to be delivered this year (XXC should be with D7 in Sept 09) will have those seats together with 31" seat pitch.

I did the D7 flight to Gold Coast (OOL) in March and on standard seats, it is not a very comfortable experience even though I travelled on their new A333s (XXB out and XXA returning to KUL). The seats are narrow and legroom is not quite enough for a medium haul flight. So if you are more than 1.75m tall, do consider paying extra for a better seat or XL seat. I am glad that their A343 is still using the old AC seats and legroom is good too, even for someone who is tall. I am not sure why you had to pay more than MH for the domestic flight. I have compared fares a number of times and AK is usually cheaper unless you have upsized your luggage a fair bit. Even Firefly costs more than AK sometimes. I guess that on those particular dates, MH might have special fares left...

Realistically, MH should have their planes configured according to their route characteristics. Maybe they should have one set of planes configured for high density economy seating and another lot for more premium seats. That way, they can have flexibility in aircraft deployment to suit market needs.

Hehehehe! Or they cud go the AK way and have 800 black leather seats!

Well most connecting flights in STN end by 1.00 am. If you arrive at 22-23:00, you will probably have to wait till 05-06:00 before making your connection.

I think MH will have tremendous advantage in deciding how to configure the A380. They just need to study the feedback from pax who have travelled on the current fleet. I think MH should put the premium seats on the top deck as it has the quieter cabin. The cheapest seats should be those aft of the jet blast on the lower deck. I think 3 classes is probably sufficient - probably 50 lie flat seats in first class, 100 business class and around 350 economy class.

Congrats on that milestone. Now, onto the next 1,0000! Keep clicking!