KK Lee

May be Jala is going to take a lesson or two from Jean-Cyril Spinetta on how to turn around an ailing airline.

'MH has the best nasi lemak on the sky.' May be Mas is the only airline serving nasi lemak for breakfast all year round. Anyone cooking nasi lemak with Thai fragrant rice (e.g. Sun white) can't go wrong. Believe most crews and frequent flyers would agree Mas food is boring, bland and unappetizing.

Mas cattle class food out from KLIA is means for cattle. Since last year, I have brought my own food for the journey, a simple take away sandwich or fried chicken is better than their meal especially the very fishy butter fish. Mas 'C' class main course meal is similar to 'Y' class except bigger portion, served on proper plate and cutlery and additional starter.

To optimize yield, Mas need 200 to 220 pax widebody to slot between 734 and 333. For 'national pride' and 'higher order value', TR ordered A330 in all -300 instead of a mixed of -200.

It was the same 'national pride' that Mas is flying 777 to EWR (SQ is using 744). While this flight was routed thru DXB, it was known from day one it won't making money because of load limitation. Likewise, the yield on LAX sector is so low that is losing over RM6 millions per month for many years but nothing is done.

If Mas is axing FRA but keeping Rome is because the Mas GSA in Italy is owned by a royalty. http://www.mggpillai.com/sections.php3?op=...cle&artid=13363 The new kid on the block operating without political interfering? I doubt it but for sure, he will be given a datukship soon.

From pax point of view; 1. MTB is still under utilized. 2. LCCT may reduce operating cost for AK at the inconveniece of paxs. 3. What is the frequency of shuttle bus between LCCT and MTB? How reliable is this service? 4. With 600 car park space, expect the rest of pax to take taxi? 5. What is the point to take 28 minute train ride to the KLIA and you may take more than 30 minutes to reach LCCT from MTB. 6. AK may need to run another $9.99 campaign to convience pax to use LCCT. LCCT is built on reserved land for cargo. The building of LCCT is for somebody up the foodchain to generate income.

The routes that Mas is genuinely losing money are the rural air service, about Rm6 millions a year. The rest are purely inefficient, unproductive and over cost. It is about time for Mas to grow up to spokes and hub routing. Again, Mas business objectives may not be commercial.

Mas business model is 70's, inefficient and non-commercial. Althought Mas is trying to attract premium passengers with better inflight service but have failed to provide what customers really need i.e. convenience schedule and connection. It is not at all surprise that those expensive upgrade are failing to bring in the expected yield. It is better for Mas to work with alliance and focus on a few European hubs (i.e. LHR, AMS and FRA) than flying to every major cities. As for the Indian routes, Mas is purely inefficient and over cost. As long as Mas is seen as a Umno coffer and redundancy is not made, it is unlikely Mas can be profitable in the long term.

Furthermore, about half of Malaysian population are avoiding travelling on foreign airlines because of worry on 'non-halal' food, and operation cost at KLIA is not cheap. Hence, market size in Malaysia is a lot more smaller amd unattractive than people assumed.

It was 'the national pride' that Mas didn't join any alliance. It is a lot more inconvenience and expensive to take Mas to or from off line cities in Europe or the USA. As not every passengers live in online cities, Mas fare from to or from Europe or the USA has to be very cheap to compete. Apart from Japan airline which has a large domestic market, doubt any sizeable international airline can compete without joining alliance. Again, business objectives of Mas is not necessary commercial.

If wireless lan is available on Lufthansa long haul, don't see the hazard of handphone transmission in flight. Believe in a study conducted in UK a few years ago, on average 5 handphones were left on during a transatlantic flight. May be it is about time for Malaysians to catch up with the technology.