Malaysia Airlines scales back Tokyo operation in April 2011

[Mike P 0]

Malaysia Airlines during the month of April 2011 is reducing operation on Kuala Lumpur – Tokyo Narita and Kota Kinabalu – Tokyo Haneda.

 

Kuala Lumpur – Tokyo Narita service reduce from 11 to 7 weekly from 01APR11 to 30APR11, while Kota Kinabalu – Tokyo Haneda will be SUSPENDED from 09APR11 till 24APR11.

 

Schedule:

 

Kuala Lumpur – Tokyo Narita

MH088 KUL2330 – 0740+1NRT 772 D

MH089 NRT1030 – 1645KUL 772 D

 

http://airlineroute.net/2011/03/30/mh-tyo-apr11/

[Pieter C. 5]

Good decision; if traffic collapses (for whatever reason), you should adjust your schedules...

[N Azman 0]

yeah. good decision.

 

Pieter, i heard NRT and HND authorities are a real pain when it comes to slot discipline. would this affect MH's slots?

 

Do you scale back NRT also for KL?

[flee 5]

Another airline suspends services:

 

American Airlines on Wednesday, April 6, plans to stop two flights between the United States and Tokyo : one of its two flights to Narita from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and its new flight from New York Kennedy to Haneda.

 

That's one-third of its U.S.-Japan schedule because it only has six flights a day. It's keeping its other flights to Narita from D/FW Airport, Los Angeles , Chicago and New York.

 

On April 26, the schedule returns to normal, as currently planned.

 

American's Jim Faulkner enlightened me about "Golden Week" in Japan. It's a period in late April and early May where several Japanese holidays are strung together, and it's a period when many Japanese take a vacation.

 

Advance for Golden Week flights are doing well, Faulkner says, encouraging American to reinstate the flights on April 26.

 

However AirAsia is not cutting Japan flights:

 

SINGAPORE, March 29 (Bernama) -- AirAsia has no plans to impose a fuel surcharge although other airlines have taken such a move.

 

"We don't want to deter travel and putting up cost," group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes said Tuesday.

 

"So, our fares can stay where there are," he told reporters after the launch of a tie-up between AirAsia and Expedia Inc to offer a complete range of value flights, hotels and holiday packages here.

 

He also said AirAsia had no plans to reduce flights to Japan because it was not the airline's philosophy.

 

"We went through the tsunami in Phuket, we never cut a flight. We went through the Bali bombing but we never cut our flights. We went through the Thai airport closure and yet we recorded profits after that," he said.

 

Fernandes said AirAsia had no problem with the Japanese market and "we will be committed to growing it".

 

He said the company was waiting for the rights to fly to Osaka and also to have daily flights to Hanada.

[Pieter C. 5]

Do you scale back NRT also for KL?

 

Nope, still operating 10x a week with 74M...

[jahur 0]

how about Kota Kinabalu to Osaka? the area is not affected?

[Josh T 0]

I don't think it's bad idea to scale back flights to Japan, especially to Tokyo. Most people would be concerned about the radiation levels in and around Tokyo and this could continue to be problem over the next few years. We're not talking about a disaster that they'll recover from in a few months but an event that could potentially have effects for years to come!