Kris Kim

Funny you mentioning that, I've actually accounted one male MH steward who was 'picking up' a pax on a MEL bound flight, I'll leave out the specifics cause you guys might think I'm abit noisy! But it couldn't be helped But all the FA's on that flight was very polite and professional, just too professional with little smiles.

This would be a new dedicated thread about Asian Airlines Commercials, feel free to post and share your favourite Asian Airline commercial! Heres the newest Vietnam Airlines Commercial for 2013, it has a very beautiful calm and upbeat feel towards it and seemingly fits Vietnamese tradition in very well. Vietnam Airlines is trying up its game in Asia and be the airline of choice for SkyTeam passengers within Asia and also reinventing its image.

I guess it wouldn't hurt to have their A380's on a few strategic routes such as LHR, CDG, HKG, NRT, MEL & SYD, catering for the higher yielding market where the demand is, whilst the A330's (or A350/787/77X) can take care of the rest of mid-long haul flying. You can't compete seriously if you have an A330 competing against an A380, this is just how it is, but I guess MH is banking on their frequencies, especially to SYD & MEL to sustain growth/load. Australia & Malaysia must reach an agreement and allocate additional rights to Malaysian carriers in order to allow MH to compete with SQ, EK, QF and EY.

Arriving into MEL is a disgrace in my opinion, the only "welcome" you get is a red mat, with the bonus of long lines at customs and quarantine. If your lucky your flight can meet up with some whales arriving which can hold up the queue all the way at duty free ! I seriously don't feel very welcomed when arriving at MEL, the space is small and cramped, however I agree, while departing, this space has changed considerably and is very nice and airy, they really did try to make the main atrium space very beautiful.

http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/1450902/eu-ban-on-cebu/?cs=34 D7 isn't going anywhere, they are happy at MEL!

I agree, if D7 is doing great out of MEL, then it should stay, MEL charges are the cheapest of any capital city Australian airport. No need to make the passengers suffer and make them travel 2 hours to Melbourne CBD. I for one would definitely avoid D7 if they were to fly out of AVV. MH & EK would be laughing and have a party if D7 shifts over.

Has any flight ever been up gauged from a narrow body to a super jumbo before? 737-800 -> A380-800 is a very very large increase!

MH would need 1 A380 each for MEL & SYD rotations, however they would only need 0.5 of a frame if combined with a LHR or CDG rotations, but it does depends on which of the 2 daily flights MH choose for both MEL and SYD, the proposed MEL A380 flight was the late night departure exMEL, which didnt have a long layer compared to the afternoon departure flight which had around 6.5~ Hours rest. I'll also mention here, if D7 & MH have used up all the given capacity, then how is D7 going double daily to MEL in October, its already loaded into their system, I believe.

I was just wondering, will the Sultan's A342 get the new BI livery too? Its wearing the current BI livery, so it might be a possibility?

QF, JQ, VA and whoever (at least 51% Australian owned carriers only) wants to fly Australia-Malaysia can still fly it, because no Australian carrier is using the rights allocated to Australian carriers. But on the Malaysian side, D7 & MH have already used up (or will be) all that is allowed for Malaysian carriers for the following ports; MEL, SYD, PER & BNE. Current MH & D7 destinations such as ADL & OOL, fall into the "regional" category and are not affected by the agreements, MH & D7 can practically fly as many times as they want there. I don't know where EK falls into, they fly MEL-KUL with full local traffic rights.

Really not surprising, CX has a consistent product and offers more frequency and more destinations than what MH can offer. However I will not rule out the possibility of BA code-sharing with MH in the future. AF already has VN for that, you will see AF co-operating more with VN for flights within SE Asia shortly, as VN adds more A321's they will be expanding their regional footprint. Being a SE Asian carrier, their network in SE Asia is very poor, but is improving, starting with the new CGK launched not too long ago, at the same time VN will also be launching more Chinese routes and ramping up services to Japan & Korea as well as Taiwan. SkyTeam is hesitant in using VN for now due to lack of infrastructure, the airports are already at capacity, when the new airport opens, I'm sure SkyTeam will make better use of Vietnam. For me I think CGK is down too down south to become a proper Asian HUB for SkyTeam, but it can still contribute either way.

I'm still secretly hoping that AirAsia buys back into VietJetAir, and eventually turns it into a AirAsia franchise. I think they are considering it, however are hesitating because the AirAsia branding is not allowed, due to restrictions and that's why Jetstar Pacific is flying naked A320's up and down Vietnam, however we are seeing changes with JQ recently changed BL to an all A320 operator and changing the uniform more inline with it's other affiliates. Hopefully the Vietnamese government will change this rule as it may harm and tarnish the growing aviation market in Vietnam.

Love the commercial, have seen it several times, very simple and professional. Simply love that they used an aussies voice for the commercial, gives it that extra little touch. However the website (flyairasia.com.au) is not very helpful, they should also include a booking section there too.

D7 has pretty much taken up all the available capacity, they are making MEL double daily and also upping SYD capacity, which leaves no room for MH to even up gauge its aircraft to the A380. The Australian side actually takes up 0% of entitled capacity, JQ did attempt SYD-KUL however that was short lived.

Looks like MEL Management pushing hard for A380 services, apparently MH doesn't have enough allowable capacity to up gauge it's aircraft to MEL. http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsbusiness.php?id=925589

The last part of your statement also applies to NRT/MEL/SYD, all 3 of these "once proposed" destinations are major financial HUB's and are major OW HUB's of member airlines; JL & QF respectively. The problem quite simply lies in MH's onboard hard product, especially on the Kangaroo route. The product will not be consistent in a premium pax's point of view, MEL/SYD-KUL will have the recliner seats whilst their LHR/CDG legs will be on lie flat seats on the A380. One would like to travel on the same product through out their entire journey, I for one would love to have lie flat seats from Australia to Europe. This will certainly put off potential OW premium customers (which Australia has a large base) from flying MH, they could alternatively fly on CX or QF instead to Europe.

That's really sad, I think they were the exclusive few from Indonesia who were allowed to fly to Europe, if they wanted too !

This is making KA very in line with CX's very own product offering, there's talk that KA might be adopting CX's livery in the future. Could this be true? Would love to see some A320's & A321's in CX colours!

If Jetstar advertises its fares for $39 then you will be paying the $39 for what is advertised, and they advertised this fare for example, without baggage. This is totally acceptable as they have clearly shown what the consumer will be buying. One also has to read the terms and conditions of the fares before committing to purchase, like the fare rules etc... I have brought sale JQ fares for $69 on MEL-BNE and only paid that much.

Yepp, that's the correct term used by Airports and Statistical data More on the MEL-KUL route, the route increase schedule is as follows; 3 May: x9 Weekly 4 July: x12 Weekly 27 October: x14 Weekly So from 27OCT13 MEL-KUL goes x5 Daily permanently, x2 MH, x2 D7 & x1 EK (continues to DXB)

I wonder how MH is doing on MEL-KUL, they haven't cut back despite the entry of EK & D7 on the route, somedays MEL-KUL has x5 Daily services, while the rest of the week has x4 Daily services. That's a lot of capacity for a mainly VFR route. If only MH did launch the initial A380 plans to MEL can they fight back their market share in the MEL market and have an edge over their current competitors, including SQ, QF & EK who all fly their A380's to MEL. SQ is double daily too.

Loving the new livery! When will the rest of the group's fleet start repainting? Are D7's A330's getting a repaint into the new livery too?

Well considering the OW livery consists of "oneworld" billboard titles along where the Malaysia Airlines lettering is painted on, not stuck on, I'm not sure about it, but it can happen I guess.

It just strikes me that VN is the only major A321 operator in South East Asia, they seem to be doing very well with them, so well they have ordered more and more in recent years, instead of going for the A320's VN tends to opt for the larger A321's. VN operates their A321 everywhere in Asia, BKK, SIN, KUL, CGK (starting soon, ST to ST HUB) and north to ICN, PUS, NRT, FUK, KIX, PVG, PEK, HKG, CAN, TPE etc... You can say the A321's are the backbone of VN's fleet. Would be great to see A321's in AirAsia's colours, will they be able to operate KUL-Japan? I know they can do KUL-China pretty easily.

I remembered BR had a single A320 at one stage dedicated to the TPE-DPS runs, this is also the re-introduction on narrow bodies in BR's fleet, would add vital frequency on certain routes too. Great choose BR! Always enjoyed flying on the A320 family vs them 737's.