D Singh

yeah this may well be, but the A380 is wasted on HKG there is no lack of capacity on this route so why its even flying to HKG is a puzzle to me.

What i meant was in lieu of one of the A330 flights run the A380, so there would be still be double daily flights one A330 and one A380. This would be a tiny increase in capacity vs 2 747 flights which used to operate the route so it would not fall afoul of government agreements would it?

These customers sound like they have the same relationship with MAS that one has with an abusive husband.... "he doest mean to hurt me he just loves me too much" j/k Yes i do understand your quandary, but Im not sure its a valid point. MAS has just not prioritized its product at all, im not sure what exactly the money has been blown on but not hard product thats certain. The A330 and A380 they ordered were brand spanking new these planes especially the A330 could have been kitted out with a much better offering and I do not see how that could possibly have cost much more than the millions they were already spending. But they didnt do that so now they have a "new" product that is already behind the curve. As for the 772 again its resource allocation instead of spending money to paint the words "fire fly" on some 737's only to then paint them back MAS they should have prioritized refitting these tired planes. Maybe MAS should adopt the model that US carriers have- giving complimentary upgrades to their most frequent flyers on short haul routes? I certainly dont see why anyone would ever pay for J class on a 737 short of using it as a connection after a long haul flight.

I would argue the opposite, you have to provide an attractive offering then passengers will come, not the other way around.

Yes I think this is a very interesting topic and I thank all for for there comments and hope more will share their opinion. I would actually like MAS to succeed despite my current tone. I just find it so frustrating that they have made such a mess of things over the last couple of decades after having been arguably a top tier airline. I know a lot of it is government interference, but I just cant see how even the government clowns manipulating things got it so badly wrong. Fact of the matter is MAS is now a middling (at best) carrier, however it operate in bearably one of the most competitive markets in the world. You have huge and expanding budget carriers on the low end and one of the most super premium airlines hubbed 185 miles down the road across a rather short bridge. Chinese airlines are also going to provide significant competition as they add capacity. CZ in particular now has a hard product (A380) which I would say if not surpassing MAS is on PAR with it. I would of course still say MAS has far superior service and there for is therefore offers a much more attractive package than CZ. However think how far the Chinese airlines have come in such a short time, it wont be long till they crack the service nut and then where will MAS be as they already often undercut MAS in price. Middling is just not good enough in that kind of a market. MAS simply must up their offering in their premium cabins if they want to hope to compete.

Hey Mohamed Thanks for the information, I did not know the Australian info at all so thanks for sharing it. Does explain a fair bit, but doesnt that then point a bit toward poor fleet planning? I do also find it hard to believe they couldn't manage one daily A380 frequency within the current agreement? Also I take your point about EK its a valid one though I would point out that they serve many more destinations with a full flat config than MH does.

Hey Suzanne thanks for the opinion! And i can completely understand your point of view. However I think you are functioning a little as a hub captive there which of-course is quite natural it is hard to trump scheduling constraints. So here is a question for you. If KLIA were better served in the future and MAS did not have a monopoly on the route you were traveling on (there were other direct options) would you be more inclined to choose someone else? I think the larger point here is for those not trapped in KUL MH does not offer a compelling products which would make those with a choice choose them.

Hahah! I can believe that :-) I think i was referring mainly when compared to the neighborhood they operate in where are there some real big guns to contend with.

Actually it was posted in one other thread, and I thought it a bit off topic so decided to start a new one. I instructed moderators to delete the old post in the other thread which they have done. Would you care to share your opinion on the actual topic of the thread?

not sure what this guy is smoking, but I think hell would freeze over before this happened. Political issues aside its just not practical how would one connect in a situation like this?? Even in cities with multiple airports people dont connect across them unless they are masochistic NRT-HND, LHR-LGW??? I think not! Senai has been a nice screw up Singapore responded aggressively to the threat and now has its own healthy stable of LCC's and a good market for them. Im not sure if there is much of a market to be had in stealing Singaporeans across the boarder, especially given the current hassle of bus and border crossing that one must endure. One Idea that knocked around my mind was if they could have have high speed rail link built to Senai and utilizing the current set up at woodlands. In and ideal world it would work something like checking in a KL Sentral where the airlines would have desks at woodlands. You would check you luggage in at woodlands and then clear Singapore exit Immigration, however they could wave the entry immigration requirement to Malaysia to speed things up. Then you board the train (which ought to run every 20 odd mins) and the train takes you to the airport. However when you get off at the airport you are already in the sterile zone of the terminal (like where the aerotrain drops you at the KUL Satellite) so all you have to do is proceed to the gate to board you flight. This all hinges on a high speed train to Senai, however its the only way I see to lower the inconvenience factor to a tolerable level to make Senai and attractive options for Singaporeans (you would have to add some pretty attractive destinations and fares out of Senai too) Thoughts?

So I think MH is quite uncompetitive not only because it has excessively cut its route network to the bone so it no longer functions properly and too its full potential as a network carrier but also due to the product it provides. Just look at the products that even foreign carriers fly regionally and even into KUL from their hubs TG flies 777 with proper business class angled seats, SQ flies A330 with the same. regionally MH product is totally sub par i know the distances can sometime be short on the regional connectors but if I can have a better product even on a short flight why would i choose an MH 737 over and SQ A330. This story even extends to long haul, the product MH offers on the 772 is way past its prime and as far as I can tell there dont seem to be any plans to do anything about it. 2-3-2 in business class?? The concept of having a middle seat in J class these days is anathema and MAS needs to catch up big time. MAS is in too highly competitive a region to be offering sub par products, even TG is now serving a majority of its long haul routes with full flat products. Lastly there product strategy is also failing in Australia, MAS is now flying A330 to both SYD and MEL so they effectively do not offer a First Class product on the Kangaroo route at all. Im no sure what the loads were but to completely pull out like this is ridiculous i think as all the money spent to build the brand and promote first class offerings in the past is now squandered. However what is more grave and critical in my option is the failing of the J class product that this presents. Because they dont offer a full flat business product all the way though to Aus, who is going to want to come off a 12 hr flight from London to board another 9 hour flight in an angled lie flat when the ME carriers, CX, SQ, and even BA wont ask you to do so. Somebody at MAS needs to wake up and see that their offerings are just poor and they need to start to compete. Anywho this is my opinion what do you all think?

Long over due in my opinion, they really are an excellent carrier, hope they come back to KUL at some point!

AF starts its KUL service in less than 3 weeks, lets see how well these loads hold. Its not surprising that you can fill an airplane when you have a monopoly but throw in some competition and lets see. It honestly boggles my mind how MAS can have a monopoly on so many of its routes and still be performing so poorly