Azman MN
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Posts posted by Azman MN
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I think SQ is not too bothered with the B744 as they are all due to be retired. They are more interested in comparing it with the B77W. So far they are convinced that the A380 is the right way to go and they never sell A380 seats at their discount price levels. A380 Load factors are above fleet average too.
Zurich went from double daily 77W to daily A380. Loads on A380 is better than 77W. Duh.... statistics... I am sure if they downgrade the double daily 77W to 772, the 772 loads will also be above fleet average.
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Ramadan is all about abstaining from food and other desires within a reasonable/normal amount of hours, and since time is 'distorted' when flying longhaul, I don't see why it has to be restricted by the exact time of sunset.
I like this approach. I don't know the origins of the sunrise-sunset rule, so I am just guessing here - in those days when watches and clocks are not easily available, if the intention is to fast for half a day, then sunset is a reasonable and practical implementation of the intention. To follow the rule blindly causes problems not just for travellers (solved by excusing them), but also for people who live in the far north or south for example (very long fasting times in summer but very short, kinda purposeless fasting times in winter).
Anyway, I flew KL-Penang once during sunset and the captain announced the time thus allowing us to devour our biscuit and drink our orange juice.
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Those wings are not worth the Lufthansa flights...
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Is this an upgrade or downgrade in capacity?
Last time I flew Syd-Sin in May, there were less than 10 people in C class, and the chief steward told me that there were only 19 passengers in Y! It was the late afternoon flight arriving in SIN at midnight on the 77W.
Those 777-200 with the new C seats are not bad. Much better for day flights than the 380 C seats.
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CX is deploying their A333 to regional and Australia, similar capacity and distance as MH’s A333.
The last CX A333 was delivered in 2008 should be similar version as D7, SQ and MH’s newly ordered. Reasons for CX to order A350 instead of more A333 must be significant.
Isn't it a simple reason? By the last delivery in 2019, their youngest A330 would be 11 years old already. If you look at the first delivery in 2016, imagine if MH would have to wait until then to replace their old A330!
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I stumbled upon an information that says FlightMemory is charging their members to input flight no. 300 and beyond. Is this true?
I tried to enter another flight today no problem. Where did you hear this?
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Actually even the embassy sometimes don't give the right info. Or, they don't bother to ask you the right questions in order to be able to give you the right info.
Eg., my colleague is a Chinese national living in Switzerland. He called the Egyptian embassy and they said, for Chinese national, no visa required.
When he checked in for his flight, they refused him because he is a resident in Switzerland. Chinese with Swiss residence permit needs visa. Chinese from China, no visa required!!!
So I tried the CO website and it shows exactly the correct answers. Impressive.
The problem with the embassy is that - they really need to know your situation, otherwise, they will give you the wrong answer.
Thank you David and Azman for your contributions. Personally, I can definitely learn a thing or two from some of the seasoned travelers among us.
And they are about to become part of OneWorld. Will that effect your Air Berlin future bookings considering the fact that you are from team Star?
Actually I don't care so much about collecting airmiles within Europe because you get almost no miles if you fly on a cheap booking class. The only reason to stick with Star Alliance is the lounge access and extra 20kg. People usually don't check in their luggage for short flights, and internet check-in means no long queues at the airport.
Air Berlin is independent right now, but I like them for the reasons I mentioned above. The only thing I don't get is the lounge access. But ZRH has a fantastic children's room with toys, change station, kitchen, beds for naps, so we definitely don't use the lounge in ZRH. At non-StarA hubs, lounges are usually very small and poor quality, my kids would much prefer to be in the play area or something like that.
If it joins One world, that is good too, so i can collect miles on that side!
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I never thought about my habits, so here goes:
BOOKING:
Business - I do a first booking based on the exact schedule that I want and end up with tickets that costs something crazy like USD14k. I submit the booking, make sure the boss approves it, and then I try different variations until I get something that is more reasonable like USD7k without messing up the schedule too much but still staying within Star Alliance if possible. A lot of colleagues simply take the given (most expensive) itinerary, and we don't really get any tangible credit for saving the company money like this, but I like to do it for personal satisfaction and also if my boss makes some snide comment about me traveling too much I can always say that hey, if I do it for half the price, I can travel twice as much as the other guy!
Private:
Directly through airline's website. I have limited holidays, and I have wife & young kids to think about. So cost is not as important as convenience.
BAGGAGE:
I pack the night before, even if the flight is in the evening, as I am usually busy during the day. I have different size cases for overnight, 3 days, 1 week or more. Also depends on destination. London overnight is already a big bag because of food shopping... New York ... 2 suitcases...
I have a black Victorinox backpack and in it I always have my blackberry, a camera and Sennheiser noice cancelling headphones. A novel or two, eye shades, eye drops, mints, various ziplock bags with different currencies, a second wallet with all the membership cards, metro cards, etc., multi-plug adaptor, custom immigration forms of various countries, spare underwear and t-shirt, even swimtrunks depending on possibilites during transit ... wow I just realized that I better not lose this bag!
GETTING TO/FROM AIPORT:
If I am travelling with golf bag, then my wife will take me or I will take a taxi. If no golf bag, then I take the train. It is 5 minutes walk from my house and takes me to the airport in 30 minutes every half an hour.
I usually arrive late at the airport to minimize the time at the airport and maximize the time in whichever city I am in.
On arrival - also depends on the luggage I have. I usually prefer public transport.
CHECK-IN:
European flights - with Swiss, which I fly most of the time, I use internet check-in and the boarding pass is sent to my blackberry. Really paperless!
Otherwise, I check-in at the counter. Most of the time I fly star alliance so I can use the business/first check in anyway.
SEAT SELECTION:
always window. I even choose which side to sit on depending on the expected views. Eg. Zurich arrivals from the East, always the A seats.
WAITING FOR FLIGHTS:
Most of the time is spent in lounges. Waiting for my laptop to boot-up and trying to connect to the internet. It is usually the only time I have to write my meeting notes. Otherwise, or on personal travel, I like to explore the airport, and in particular, I like to check how well kept the toilets are. More so during arrivals - arriving in a new country and having a first look at the conditions of the toilet seems to prepare me for the unknown...
I am usually the last person to board the flight, but one of the first to deboard. I like to get past immigration before the rest of the crowd gets there.
ON BOARD:
Somehow I am not so much into the onboard movies anymore. I prefer to read a book when I am awake, if I am not walking around and chatting with the cabin crew. I love chatting with them and hear about their experiences. Whether they think that I am bothering their work or what I don't know...
The first priority for me is anyway to try and sleep. On short-haul flights within Europe, I am usually reading preparatory notes for a meeting or reviewing the day. If I am flying back from London, then I always have an English magazine to read, such as What Hi-Fi, or Digital Photography, etc. Just can't get those in Zurich for a decent price... AIRCRAFT:
Love the 77W. Now SQ is using the 380 for the Zurich run...
AIRLINE:
Seeing as I have senator status on Miles&More due to my business travels, I tend to stick to Star A. The perks are quite nice, i.e., lounge access, extra luggage allowance, etc., etc. I am starting to like Air berlin a lot too, it is very family friendly (free seat reservation if you are with children, they get full baggage allowance, car seats transported for free, etc.).
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I would urge everyone to read this website http://travel.state.gov/travel/travel_1744.html before going to any country. Just read (and comprehend) the country-specific information. The 10 minutes time allocated for this purpose could eventually save your life. Trust me, I learnt the hard way - twice.
When I submit a travel booking online (our company uses the Carlson Wagonlit Travel Tool), one of the first things that I receive via e-mail is an automatically generated safety reminder for countries I have booked travel to. For Malaysia, I get a reminder to be careful in Sabah, or overland crossing into southern Thailand, etc.. but what annoys me is that when I book Singapore, I get a safety message for Johor Bahru. A few of my colleagues travelling to Sin have even asked me "if going over to Malaysia for the weekend" is a bad idea...
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If I remember correctly, the permanent LCCT site is chosen because the area opposite the MTB cannot be used anymore - despite the original plans for KLIA which allocates space on that side, the KLIA Express rail track was built "too high".
I wonder therefore if the cost of extending the track plus building a new station is more expensive than to simply rebuilt the affected track. Certainly, a new station is not needed at all if the LCCT is built opposite the MTB.
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MH going from 3 to 0 and SQ from 14 to 7 makes you wonder if there is really enough potential traffic...
Anyhow, I agree: by offering a daily MH flight and doing a good job with yield management, the airline would have done better than pulling out of the market at all...now, they're loosing customers to (mainly) Star-Alliance airlines, like LH/LX/TG and SQ...
SQ went from 77W to 380. It's more like going from 14 to about 11 I think... but EK went up to 14.
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I suppose the reason y they did not dare to increase is they may have been afraid of poor loads and 290+ seater T7s may have been too big. This is where Dreamliners would fit the picture perfect.
Zürich is a small city (population less than 1m). Switzerland is a small country (population less than 8m). No matter what, there will not be a lot of Y passengers. However, Zürich is a major financial center. Some of the biggest companies in the world are headquartered in Switzerland. Business travel is huge. Not only for businessmen, but also wealthy individuals on their annual holidays. (Salary levels are so high here that a return business class ticket to Asia is only about half a month's salary for the average professional).
As my previous post, SQ does not seem one bit concerned that they cannot fill up the Y seats because they can easily fill up the C class. Not only that, I noticed that Suites are also well taken up! I had trouble getting seats for my previous trip on SQ C class. Started looking around at Emirates, LX, QR... on all of them, C class were almost full. Only BA (strikes) and TG (political unrest) were available. Managed to get on SQ anyway in the end thanks to my persistent travel agent.
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It is a known fact that MH didnt have daily service to ZRH, FRA, ERW, etc, and not a member of airline alliances.
MH is GLC preferred airline, executives may adapt their itinerary to fit MH schedule and purchase separate ticket to destinations that is not served by MH. However MNC executives preferred to travel on airline that fit their schedule and has convenience connection. Hence, most MNC executives choose SQ even connection at SIN.
For inbound pax, MH regional connection to/from intercontinental or regional flights is still unique among legacy airlines, is not scheduled for convenience connection.
Until MH abandoned its 1990s model, doubt MH could attract high yield pax.
Well said. I have always maintained that MH should have increased to 6x weekly at least instead of cancelling the 3x weekly. Employees in my company do hundreds of trips to Asia/Australia every year and despite finding the price to be competitive, service to be excellent, connecting via KL quite pleasant, everyone found it hard to make the schedule work.
Now that SQ has reduced to daily flights from double daily, people are already moaning about the poorer schedules...
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The above detailed statistics did consider In and Out. That's y we have yr 593 seaters as it equals to almost 80% load factors for the "typical" MH 744.
BTW, yes cargo is another big plus. BTW, wud be interesting if we could similar analysis for EWR and ZRH .
I flew the ZRH flight many times. Flights are always full. Sometimes it is hard to get a seat on those flights. Business class is usually only half full though. When there used to be first class, I only noticed at most 2 passengers up front.
Therefore, even if the statistics show that load factors are good, it does not mean that margins are good.
Just for comparison sake, my last 2 flights on SQ A380 on the ZRH route was full in C class, but economy was not full.. one flight had around 170 and the other around 190 pax. This tells me that a full Y class does not mean anything.
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Just got off the phone with a FedEx guy. They can deliver my package to me anytime today, I just have to tell them when. Expressing my suprise seeing as they can never say exactly when (apart from morning or afternoon), he said that they have no more packages to deliver today because nothing arrived in the past few days. Well, something positive for me, at least.
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Zurich airport opened at 8am CET today. However, a lot of flights are still cancelled. A Swiss spokesperson said that their first priority is to get everyone home. For that they need to reposition their aircraft and crew as well. It would be a few days before things get to normal.
Getting to normal is a bit of a challenge though. Latest news said that the volcano is becoming more active again!
I am due to fly this Thursday (22nd) from ZRH-SIN, and that is followed by another 9 flights over the next 3 weeks. If I don't make it on this flight, there will be a domino effect on the rest of my flights. Might as well cancel the whole trip. I was hoping to fly, but now I am thinking that if this goes on, coming back to Zurich as planned is not even a sure thing!
At least I can see that if that 380 doesn't leave Singapore on Wed. night, my Thursday flight is definitely cancelled.
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Depending on the weather, I will try to get a photo of its arrival in ZRH. WOuld be nice to have some snow on the ground too... like this week.
ZRH too fogged up today so I didn't bother. Some photos from a local tabloid:
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However, on many destinations like FRA, CDG, FCO, LAX daily service is unlikely to justify for 772. Without daily service, MH is unable to attract premium pax and we can expect most EUR routes to be low yield or making losses.
I see your point. However, I believe that the reason MH cannot fill up a 772 is because of the lack of daily service, not in spite of. My observation is limited to Zurich though - MH used to fly 4x per week... too many empty seats, so reduce to 3x per week... it got worse, so in the end it was 0x per week.
For business people, as you mentioned, and also from my experience working in a company where we make about 1000 trips per year to asia-pacific, 4x per week is just not good enough and if they can't get a good share of this high margin business, then it is already difficult to make it work overall (2 main reasons why my colleagues don't fly MH was because firstly the low frequency, and secondly, poor connections out of KUL).
For Y pax, a major portion of European passengers are working people and families on holidays. I have a number of friends who could not book MH because they cannot get flights within the dates of their planned time off work. I mean, you get 2-3 weeks off per year and you want to go on holiday, but you can't maximise your holidays due to the flight schedules. One friend who works at a tour agency told me that it was almost impossible to sell MH as part of the package because of frequency. In the end, as I noticed on a lot of MH flights to/from ZRH, it is just full of retirees and university students who have time on their hands...
Look at emirates.. they did not tip toe into ZRH. They went daily.. then double daily.
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The newly purchased 15 A333Es don't have the range to operate some routes that the current B772s are currently serving non-stop. And during the former MD/CEO time, Dato Seri Idris Jala clearly mentioned that MH will operate only 3 types of aircraft in the entire fleet - A380s, B738s and the then an un-announced type of aircraft. I was in the opinion that this one should be the mission of the A350s and/or B787s of different variants of course (to suit the destination to aircraft range and capacity) if MH decided to replace its entire existing A333s and B772s. So why does MH need to buy the 15 A333Es and then buying another type of aircraft when the airline can just buy one type of aircraft which are the A350s and/or B787s to replace both?
So we are back to this:
- they desperately need to update the 330s, and it is more cost-effective to buy new ones.
- for the next 5-8 years however, they can't get any 350s or 787s, but beyond that it is widely available. Thus there is no rush to place the order because they have anyway missed the boat. Waiting another 3 years to order will only delay the delivery by 1 year or so.
- in the mean time, order the A330 because they prob. got a good deal from Airbus as compensation anyway.
Yeah, they should have placed the order in 2006... but they have missed the boat... they screwed up which leaves them with no other choice.Seems logical to me.
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You mentioned how MH can get the A350s in 1 or 2 years time if the order is being made today. Of course it won't happen. But if MH wants the A350s/B787s to be in its fleet by the next 1 or 2 years, orders should have been made in say... 2006? Again, extremely slow decision making is to be blamed? Based on what I can see now, all type of aircrafts in MH's fleet will stay on for a very long time, at least for 15 years. So chances are, this 15 A333s will stay put up until 2026. At that time, should the A350s and B787s programs are not delayed, D7 would have operated their A350s for 10 years (delivery starting in 2016) and SQ would have been operating their A350s for 13 years (delivery starting in 2013) and their B787s for 15 years (delivery starting in 2011 - which is most likely not going to happen). It's a decade difference of technology people! Can MH be certain that the cost of operating this A333s can be much lower that the cost of operating the A350s and B787s by D7 and SQ? I mean seriously? Since when MH become a so 'cost concern' entity more than D7 and SQ, which are better run airlines anyway? And ultimately, how can this costs translate into the passengers experience? Will the airfares on MH be cheaper then? Will the frills that have been taken away being returned back to us?
Good post.
Enthusiast that I am, I still can't really tell the difference between the markets that the 350, 330 and 787 are serving. Am I right that the 330 will serve different markets compared to the other 2? So the 330 replaces the 330, and the 787 and 350 should be the replacement for the 772?Another interesting point: Swiss are still taking delivery of the A330s. The last ones will be delivered by the end of 2010 I think. But boy are they plugging the new cabins! They will also start refurbishing their 340s. If they use the refurbished planes for say, 5 years, then most of their 340s will already be about 12 years old. I don't think they have even ordered the 350 or 787. So you have to wonder, how long they plan to use the new A330s.... and no one is questioning their decision to go ahead with the 340 refurbishment even though the 350 and 787 are "soon" to be available.
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If average Joe and Jane may not know the difference between A350, 787, A380, A330, 777, 747, DC-10, A300, 732. Why bother to replace A330 with A33E?
Joe and Jane will for sure notice an old plane because of the very run down interior. But given new looking interior and IFE, they will notice the new plane. Whether that plane is an Airbus or 350, I think they would not notice.
From the airline point of view, didn't someone mention that refurbishing those old 330s would cost almost as much as buying the new 330s?
I don't want to defend MH's decision. But I believe in striking a balance between passenger needs and business needs. Improvements for passengers must be tangible,i.e., new looking cabins (i.e., fresh upholstery, no coffee stains on the carpets) largish IFE screen, fancy looking remotes. This can be done by updating the interiors every few years, or when the price is right, buying a new aircraft.
I used to deal with Virgin regularly (the airline
) in my job. Even met with Sir Richard once as he was hanging out in the CFOs office before my meeting. They told me that there is only so much they can do in the air because the more things they add like bars and massage stools, the less real estate they will have (less space for seats). So in the end, their cabins look like any other good airline's cabin. However, they spend a lot of money on their lounges as the benefit per square feet of space is just so much better. So their strategy is - buy aircraft only as needed and with the best cost, spend money to have the best lounges, not so much money on cabins (to be above average but not the best), and lots of marketing to make people think that their cabins are the best. Marketing their cabins as the best is less expensive than actually making their seats the best! -
Pilots will ask for better quality controlling. ATC will ask for better equipments. Spotters will ask for more airlines.
And "somebody" will ask for more projects. Too bad this will result in the government asking for more money, and all us us will pay the price.
I'm sure some spanish air controllers would be looking for jobs soon:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6991798.ece
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But customers will want to fly new like QF/SQ they prefer 380 to 747
Yes, I have mentioned a few times already, 380 is an exception. Based on what you are saying, SQ passengers will want to avoid the old 777 even after they have been refurbished?
Well, there are number of differences on the A350s and A330s of which the later was designed in the 90s. I am sure that passengers who has the opportunity to fly the A350s will definitely tell the difference. The A350s technology is as least 20 years newer than the A333s and obviously, passengers can feel the difference when they are on board.
Maybe they can tell the difference, but is it important? Let me put it this way: Average Joe flew the 787 and the flight crew ignored him, they ran out of his choice of food, had to sit at the window because there were no aisle seats left. But he saw a good action movie on the 11 inch screen.
Average Jane got "a WHOLE can of coke!" when she asked for a glass, got her choice of food, no one sat in the seat next to her, and saw a great chick flick on the 6 inch screen. She flew A330. What would Joe and Jane remember from this flight? Would they even remember the size of the IFE screen, or just that they got to watch a nice movie? Next time they fly, would they choose the airline or aircraft? Perhaps Joe might choose the 380 if that route was upgraded because it is a BIG plane, but if it was any other aircraft, I doubt he would want to fly that airline again... unless there is a special offer on...
Actually I am also disappointed that MH is buying "only" A330s. But I also understand that at this point, they have no other choice. A350 and 787 needs so much lead time so would be appropriate for the next round of purchases. That they shouldn't wait too long before ordering is something I totally agree with. From my point of view, you need to balance passenger's comfort with cost-business decisions. These days I find that cabin improvements is not that visible to passengers. It doesn't take anyone long to realize that Y class in 380 is like any other Y class. Well, more frequent fliers will note the quietness of the cabins. Other improvements are barely visible unless you really fly a lot. Is 20 years of tech advancement a lot? Do the average passengers go wow when sitting in a 777 instead of a 767 or 747 for that matter?
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What are you talking about the average joe will notice the difference for ex. mood lighting, no shades, dimmed windows. etc.. these are avaliable on the 787 not on the 330 and the passenger will notice as probaly SQ will advertise the 787's while MH will advertise anicent technology, even BI has 787's on order. Why is MH is not buying 739's if the 330's are toobig or lease 757's
Relax bro, no need to get all worked up over this. I am just telling you from my own personal experience. My wife travels quite a bit too. She does on average 10-20 flights per year. Yet she did not even notice the difference between the old 772 SQ seats and the new 777W / A330 seats, let alone Boeing or Airbus. All she is concerned about during flights is how attentive the service is, if the food is edible, whether there is a nice movie to watch (hardly ever comments on the size of the screen), whether the toilets are clean. She would never take the window seat. In fact very few non-aviation enthusiast I know actually prefer a window seat. In the company I work for, people travel on business quite a lot. What they always talk about is service, how nice the business class seats are, lounges and connection times. There is very little talk about the type of aircraft. Only recently with the A380 coming to Zurich are people talking about aircraft types. But even so, it is A380 vs. the rest.
Moving on, AK will be advertising the new A350s when it is delivered to them in few years time. How would MH brand the A330s? IFE isn't something new...besides that, all the premium airlines that operate the A333s has already installed that as well. Betters fares? I don't really think we can expect lower fares in the future as had been mentioned by the new CEO that as capacity is expected to pick up.
My point is, Air Asia will say "blah blah blah on our latest generation A350". MH will say "blah blah blah on our brand new airbus". Would average joe know the difference?
MAS New 15 A330-300X + 4 A330-200 Freighter
in General Aviation
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No denying that. Just a nice spin to say that "A380 loads are better" when in fact "we could not fill up our double daily 77W". Not really apples to apples.