Azman MN

I don't follow the argument that with aerobrigde you can only use one exit. I can't remember where (BHX? DUB? EDI? FRA?) but I have experienced passengers in front using aerobridge, passengers in the back take the steps onto the tarmac and then back up the steps of the aerobridge into the terminal.

Thanks for the info. Do you know when the 13th A380 will be delivered? I think the all business upper deck ones will probably be used on the ZRH route. C class is always full. I guess they can add another 24 - 32 business seats.

Free, Complimentary... they should not mention anything at all in my opinion. This is not inter- terminal transfer. This is a transfer between two buildings within the same terminal! Once you check-in and enter the departure areas, how can they make anyone pay just for them to get you to the plane? Or when you arrive, do you know any other airport around the world that charges you a separate fee so that you can get to the immigration, baggage hall and exit?

I passed thru KLIA a few times last month and somehow always managed to have a gate at the MTB, so I have not experienced the bus service. However, I must say that there is a lot of information about it. Eg., SQ's website, SQ check-in counter in SIN (although I was checking into a flight for another destination), MH check- in counter, during the flight. At the aerotrain area there were also plenty of signs. But why oh why do they have to mention that the bus service is FREE ??? Why would anyone make passengers pay for it at all? They make it sound as if we have to be grateful that we don't have to pay for it.

I have flown in many countries and only in the US I have a problem with people aggressively reclining. I recline too, usually on night flights. But on day flights I sometimes recline but only halfway. If the person behind protests (it has happened), then I put my seat up straight away. In the US, as soon as the seatbelt signs are off, people recline to the full without a care. I find it quite bad. If I protest, they start to argue. It is not a right, it is not a privilege, it is all about common courtesy to your other fellow Y class sufferers.

I understand some of you are complaining, but I actually see it as a positive move. Before, when I buy the lowest fares, I can't choose at all. Now I can buy the lowest fare and for a rather small fee, I can also choose the seat. This is great flexibility. It is anyway free when we do online-check in. Let's compare to SQ - if (an only if) you book online on their website, you are free to choose seats. But from my experience, you need to book very very early. I once booked 5 weeks before the flight, and only lousy seats were left. So I much prefer that they charge for this option and leave the decision to passengers. I know, I know, first come first serve, but who books 6 months in advance?

I was on a Qantas 767 from Mel-Syd on 23 November. The Captain joked during his welcoming remark that "Please don't be alarmed when you look out the window and think that an engine is missing, the 767 only has 2 engines, one on each side". Then we spooled up for take-off, moved a few meters and stopped again. We thought.. oh god.. that captain shouldn't have... so we exited the runway and the captain said there was an aircraft crossing the runway so we had to abort, phew... Flight was great by the way. I like Qantas. Very good crew, very spontaneous. I also had 2 A380 flights on SQ last month. Only the more usual problems, i.e., IFE kept on resetting on one flight, and on the other the chiller broke down so we had breakfast 7 hours before landing in ZRH, having only finished dinner 4 hours before that, etc.

The ZRH-SIN SQ A380 was supposed to leave at around 6pm SIN time.. but looks like it is still sitting in ZRH.

hmm interesting. I am booked on SQ 380s from ZRH to MEL in 2 weeks. My colleague from Germany is joining me and he booked QF from FRA. Must ask him if maybe one of his sectors is on 380. Luckily nothing happened.

Prefer the slide downwards type. Don't have to lift your stuff as high to put it in.

question for Capt. Radzi - assuming you will fly the new planes soon, do you need to get some sort of certification or can you just fly it immediately? Or will the next 2 weeks be used by the pilots for familiarization exercises and the like? MH has a few hundred 737 pilots right? The ecomony seats look quite nice, except for the red bit on top. The business class seats would be nicer with a different shade of blue...

Ok, measuring on the floor leads to the same result - it is still not the distance from the back of the seat in front to the front of the seat in the back, thus slimline seats tend to have more legroom than the measurements suggest. So, using QF example means that if the MH seats are slimline, 30" would be comparable to 31.5" - 32".

Aircraft financing can be very complicated and is determined by tax needs. Yamasa may/may not have anything to do with aviation. However, if they pay off a loan, they can get tax write-offs for the loan payments. All arranged by BNP who probably provided them with the loan to buy the plane. So Yamasa is just a place to "park" the ownership. If you need to know more, try googling "Japanese Tax Leasing". Anyway, thanks very much for the great coverage, guys!

Seat pitch is measured from the middle of the seat in front to the middle of the seat in the back, right? So if the seat is say, 2 inches narrower than the old seats, wouldn't the 30 inches be equal to 32 inches? I remember that SQ or someone narrowed down the seat pitch without actually narrowing it, courtesy of the new version narrower seats. But still, less than 32 inches for long haul...

I think when you talk about the Australia routes, you need to consider the whole kangaroo routes, i.e., Europe to Australia. You can't fill up European routes and Australia routes by Malaysian traffic only. Most of the market share that MH lost is I believe due to the passengers transiting in the middle east instead.

Yeah.. why must arrive at 3.20am? Must the aicraft go somewhere before 5am?

This is not just a budget airline sickness, this is done by all legacy carriers in Europe as well. Try to check-in with Lufthansa in Munich or Germany. You will see many many self check-in kiosk all the way from the train station or the kerb and it is not that easy to find the check-in counters, and when you do, the queue is very long... Also noticed the same thing with Qantas in Sydney and Melbourne. First thing you see are the kiosks and then the line for baggage drop-off, and it is hard to figure out which counters are for normal check-in.

I think it is a slight improvement, but it looks less "5 star" and more "budget/value airline". How it would look like on an A380? Trying to make that ugly aicraft look nice is futile...

Don't know how Subang can be a city airport when it is not in the city. With the traffic jams there I think people who are from the east side of KL especially will find going to KLIA to be easier or quicker. From the city center these days I think going to KLIA or Subang will take equal amount of time. City airport would be something like Sungai Besi. Is runway length a problem? I think it is even longer than London City airport. Unfortunately I heard that Sungai Besi has already been earmarked for commercial development or something. And think about it - just need to add a KLIA Express station on the existing line and both airports would be connected!

My first experience dealing with Enrich apart from collecting points: - found out that tonnes of miles will expire this year, so I decided to score an upgrade. - waited almost 40 minutes until someone answered the phone - seats available, upgrade confirmed, but must go to the nearest MH office within 24 hours. Why, I asked, isn't it all e-ticket? Well, they need to endorse something bla bla.. - so I went to MH office, served immediately by a very efficient young lady, but she seems to be doing a lot of typing. - then she said "something wrong with the system". Cannot "print out". So she would email me my new e-ticket. - Eh?? she would email it to me? so why do I need to go the MH's office at all?

hmm.. GRU is sort of a mini Star Alliance Hub. If I want to fly from ZRH to Santiago or Buenos Aires for example, I first fly LX to GRU and then connect to the LH flight to those cities. So I wonder if the SQ flight is timed to coincide with those LH flights.

Very good point. If D7 can fly to Sydney, more passengers will use KLIA. People from Sydney will suddenly have cheap access to South East Asia using KLIA as a hub. People from South East Asia can have cheap access to Australia connecting via KLIA. The govt. must therefore realize that the first priority is to get passengers to use KLIA. As the connecting traffic grows, even MH will benefit. Heck, even foreign airlines might want to fly into KLIA to try and get some business out of all those people who have cheap access to KLIA!

Heh, in some ways, MH is actually way ahead of the curve. They already ordered the A330 !

I saw that docu when it first came out a long time ago. What I remember is that 777 is the first one to be designed entirely using networked computers, eg., the guy drawing the wing design can see on the computer that the fuselage guy already allocated the spot where the wings should be screwed to, and the cable guy is not running cables where the screws would need to pass through. So when they put everything together for the first time they were so amazed and relieved that everything fits just right. With dreamliner, there is a huge difference, i.e., entirely different companies from different parts of the world are manufacturing the different parts. These subcontracts are causing big delays... With the Etops as well, I think the 777 was the first one to count testing hours as contributing towards the Etops certification. Previously, Etops certification only starts when all the flight tests are over. Thus when the 777 went into service, it's first passenger flight was transatlantic LHR-JFK. Otherwise it would have to fly a number on internal US flights before being allowed over water. That's what I remember... such a long time ago since the 777 came into service. I did fly on that first 777 (United Airlines N777UA) in 2006, JFK-LHR. Nice plaque on the door saying that it is the first 777 in service, but the interiors was already showing its age...

Of course. So the management of SQ made a mistake in setting up double daily flights to ZRH. When they realized they can't fill their planes, they switched to A380 and claimed that it is because the A380 is more efficient than 77W. While SQ is quite good at adjusting supply to meet current demand, to say that the A380 is more efficient is misleading especially where Zurich is concerned. I am sure that there are other statistics that could prove this, I am just saying that statistics must always be taken in the right context.