Najib Ramli

the way i see it is quite simple, if the recent Ryanair flight cancellation fiasco which led to the flight cancellation affecting almost 300,000 people during the European summer holiday season had not happend, PB would probably have stayed with MAB.... but due to the fiasco, the current COO is leaving and Ryanair turned to PB to fill the position. besides, the COO position might provide an inside track for him to become Ryanair CEO, the biggest airline in Europe by number of passengers flown...making it almost an irresistible opportunity for him to pass up

Indeed, GM went through the same exercise in which NGMCo (new GM co) continued operation while the "old" GM assumes all the debts. But nobody calls GM "New GM" or anything like that. Granted the "New GM" then changed their legal entity name to General Motors Company LLC afterwards but the old legal entity name was actually General Motors Corporation. Regardless of that people still call it GM that being the familiar company name. So in MH case it's quite similar isn't it. Despite the change in legal entity name,the conpany is still called MAS since that's the most familiar brand name

I would say the US TARP bailouts, UK Bank bailouts post 2008 are quite similar in nature. New laws/acts were passed in parliament/congress to enable tax payer's money to flow to these companies. But I agree, digressing too much as this should be about Cathay

well my company (not a GLC but a top 10 Global Fortune 500 company) did kind a like similar thing Staff were asked to volunteer and many actually got compensation as good as if they continue working till retirement. A person I know actually got 3 years worth of compensation when he only has 2 years to go. Those who were thinking of retiring early held off for half a year and volunteered and got cash bonanza (where I'm located you cannot get lump sum payment from your pensions fund when you retired so this is really huge for them) I would say at the end of the day it depends on the jurisdiction of location where the company is located and the origin of the company. An American company is almost always brutal while those form Europe and Canada are much more compassionate. Cathay om the other hand is a bit of a mix Chinese-UK organization so I have no idea...

Considering the KLM flights to KUL (with onwards connection to CGK) is almost always full despite the fare (at least 25-30% higher compared to when MH was still flying) I would say AMS is the logical choice

inflight movie for a domestic US flight? (there fix it for you )

I have a quick question that's back to topic related (though good sarcasm and petty argument, really?) In incidents like this, the landing gear is definitely toast and there should be some body impact as well. Since repair almost always take place on site, who does the repair, where do they get the equipments (to hoist aircraft etc, not spares) and how do they check for structural integrity prior to flying again? I would assume a major airport would have those facilities but at a smaller airport like Sibu things probably aren't readily available

perhaps this is time for some of us here to roll up their sleeves and join in to help out the company? or at least help out in finding people suited for the job it is by all means somewhat of a recruitment call

getting a bit out of topic here, what i understand is that you're saying that MYR was falling in value vs EUR after LH introduced their direct services here thus it's possibly one of the factor for their pull out.. the fact is the reverse however...it was EUR that was falling in value vs MYR in 2015 (due to the Greek crisis) and in 2010 to 2014 (post sub prime crisis where European banks had to be bailed out and era of USD 100 oil price)...prior to those years MYR has always been above 4.5 to the EUR unless you go wayyyy back so i really doubt that LH actually decided to cancel the direct service due to currency exchange rates... if you look at AF, it's no surprise that they cancel the direct service. as a group AirFrance-KLM passenger numbers increased as per latest report but broken down by airline, AF is bleeding customers while KLM is adding customers. that's quite telling about AF performance in general. as being told in this thread, the oil and gas traffic was decimated by the oil price crash, contributing to significant drop in premium traffic for these careers. i mean LH and AirFrance-KLM even have a special FF membership for those working in Oil and Gas. you're entitled to premium membership services right form the start even when you have 0 miles (though as per recent changes lounge access are only for transfer passengers for FlyingBlue Petroleum). i would assume that the industry (though now decimated) contribute significant traffic, else they would not have bothered to introduce such services regarding why people is investing in the US. people park their money in Malaysia (and developing countries) because of the higher returns (high interest rates), the US has had extremely low rates (near 0%, imagine buying a house for 1% interest rate, good for consumer, not so good for lenders) for many years now. the recent hike however makes it more attractive to park money in the US itself. anyway back to the topic of SIA, network changes are quite inevitable i would say. even the all mighty Emirates is struggling in the current environment. you would have though cheaper oil price would mean cheaper operating costs for the airlines and thus more profits, but it turned out the cheaper oil price also suck money out of many people's pockets as well...

A few years back MYR to EUR conversion rates is exactly where it is right now (4.5-4.6 level) so I don't actually see how you come to the 3/4 conclusion. It was only briefly during Greek crisis in 2015 and a few years during USD 100 oil price that MYR traded at below 4.00 for EUR (unless you go wayyyyy back of course) But then again I don't think inter company repatriation of money works by simple exchange rates calculation Also I agree with Jani that supposedly weak ringgit should be boon for Europeans since things should be cheaper.. However the truth on the ground is that they're still reeling from the impact of the previous and recent economic crisis

Considering that this thread went 3 pages, I agree with Jani that indeed people were freaking out unnecessarily And regarding that even Jani wasn't sure before someone clarified, you do realise that he's probably not authorised to make such statement on behalf on MAHB right. Then again maybe that's just me but I would think that almost all public companies haave a policy that an employee should not make any public statements without prior authorization

I thought that was indeed the extent of the partnership, a low key partnership rather than a full blown one... Excerpt from The star: "Under the partnership, MAS will get numerous benefits including LED and static board brand exposure at each home game at Anfield and exposure on the Liverpool FC website, publications and Facebook page" It's definitely not a big sponsorship like Garuda used to have.. Even on the website the MAS logo is down there along with Konami, Maxxis etc rather than the big players..

part of both obviously....and as for the side reading, are there anybody else that would actually give such low interest loans + technology transfer + manufacturing in the current economic climate? at the end of the day it's business and money matters...not too different from the UK i would say where their big + better known companies (automotive, steel etc) are probably owned by India+China because they have the money.... and the nuclear sector is own solely by France (EDF) after German companies pull out (E.ON and RWE) because they're the only ones willing to invest

i would guess Australia/New Zealand would be the most logical choice considering the lack of 1 stop connection to those countries... aside from that, the direct connection might be due to the need to facilitate businesses between those 2 countries and some other Asian countries...lot's of tech firms operate from Israel lately and Singapore plus some other Asian countries are high tech manufacturing hubs indeed, this is the official standing of the OIC (and many of its members)...aside from that human rights record in occupied territories is appalling by any possible metric..so you don't need to be a Muslim to be opposed to this....even in Europe/US people actually do take this into account...just look at the previous example that i mentioned (EU labelling) and the past Caterpillar controversy

Malaysia's stance on Israel mirrors the GCC countries and some others as part of the OIC...nothing wrong with that as that's the policy that had been taken since a while back... to suggest that Malaysia boycott the US altogether just doesn't make sense but rather detrimental to the economy and everybody knows that.... furthermore different countries have different ways to protest action by other countries depending on what suits them... ie: the EU now requires labels for all Israeli products produced from occupied territories in consideration on the poor human rights record in the occupied territories...considering that they actually supplied lots of goods and fresh produce to the EU, it did create an uproar recently

well considering that the flight is to TLV, you can safely assume that kosher would be the choice for most originating from there... and regarding orthodox/secular, many in the US (and thus quite secular) while not strictly adhering to kosher, do abstain from pork....not to mention you'll find the U/D/K (kosher certified) labeling on most packed/processed food coming from the US so you can be sure that they do somewhat adhere to it....(just for fun, google Planters peanuts, you'll probably see the U/D/K label on the bottle)

no, I don't believe SQ would need to circumvent Malaysian/Indonesian airspace for the flight, things just don't work that way indeed, really there's a lot of Israelis visiting Malaysia..it's just that they usually use another passport since Israel allows multiple citizenship... the reverse is also true, Malaysians can and do actually visit Israel, via the pilgrimage route that is... officially Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, but that doesn't mean that business (or even official government matters) doesn't happen in some way or another but yes to fully attract Israeli tourists (key point here is tourists, not business people), it's probably more important about the food selection and other religious observations (I see this no differently than KLM flights for the AMS - KUL - CGK sector which serve halal food as the standard option)

I'm not in the rail business but at about USD 115 million per KM for line 1, that's quite a competitive rate right considering that about 20% of the line is underground..the all underground Singapore Thomson line is slated to cost around USD 500 million per KM

so does SAS Scandinavian...quite common for FSC to do it actually.... good move i would say to remove congestion at the counter itself...hopefully they would eventually place the machines all over the airport

there's no way KUL would be able to compete with Bangkok, HCMC, Bali etc when it comes to Europe/US/Australian travellers .... those destinations are the true "holiday" destinations for them since everything goes (if you know what i mean) even to the point that even Malaysians go there for holidays... so there's no surprise that the major carriers would actually go more to those cities vs KUL...

OT: agree that GST is kind of double taxation but it is a consumption based tax, thus in theory a fair kind of tax considering that there's so many "creative" way to understate your income to avoid/pay less income tax.. then again, considering the kind of fiscal regime where I am now where max tax rate =52%, VAT = 6%/21% (essential/non essential) and the fact that the money you saved for pension only buys you an annuity pension plan which is taxed and only get after 67, current tax regime in Malaysia is not too bad at least still flying first/business class ... i've to swap flying with train completely even for a 4hr+ journey these days

exactly, as I said earlier rebranding of Dragon to Cathay Dragon is definitely not for nothing...this is not like the pairing of 3K-QF or even MI-SQ..it's not like you suddenly have to fly 738/a320 or lose business class with the switch and let's just ignore that from the standpoint of CX, this move means lower cost and higher revenue for them since they don't have a direct competitor on the KUL-HKG sector... also we can conviniently overlook that the majority of KUL-HKG traffic is end to end or for connections to China rather than for connections to Europe or North America (CX only if flying to Toronto perhaps) or Australia-(duh, but few years back the fare was actually good though that's a long way home) But hey let's enjoy the doomsday scenario from many on this forum, don't you just love it

If they keep on selling an inferior hard product after the switch for the same price then nice move indeed for CX hahaha But on a serious note, they have no direct competition for non stop flight now.. MH 738 is probably a less desirable option anyway

I would think Cathay did not rebrand Dragon as Cathay Dragon for nothing....and Cathay Dragon is definitely not low cost by any means...