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On a different topic…

 

on Flightradar24- MH127/126 seems to be operating daily with the A330 and tonight’s flight is just behind SQ215 and just ahead of QF72 - and has been for the last 3 weeks or so..however…
Does anyone know why this flight is not open for reservations or listed on Perth Airport arrivals/departures? 
Is it still only operating for Cargo only? 
Seems odd that only the 737-operated MH125/124 and twice weekly A330 MH127/126 is bookable - although the actual flights that seem to be flying do not match what’s available for reservations…

Cheers…

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34 minutes ago, Dr Frasier said:

Does anyone know why this flight is not open for reservations or listed on Perth Airport arrivals/departures? 
Is it still only operating for Cargo only? 

You probably guessed it right. It's strictly cargo only. Doesn't help when Australia's ETAs are severely delayed for Malaysians making many people cancel their plans to Australia. 

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Some of the current 737-800 will be sporting new Safran seats in the coming weeks. Removal of inflight entertainment system on both classes in favor of personal 3pin powerplug port + usb port per seat and introduction of entertainment streaming content via wifi was chosen apparently. Firefly will also be using them but not sure if the WIFI entertainment will be installed or not. 

The 737max will be using a different seat.

Edited by jahur

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16 hours ago, jahur said:

The 737max will be using a different seat.

Any rumors of flat beds in the 737max? Are they planning to use it for long thin routes (e.g. secondary cities in AU/CN/IN/KR/JP) or just a replacement for the current NG?

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8 hours ago, Craig said:

Any rumors of flat beds in the 737max? Are they planning to use it for long thin routes (e.g. secondary cities in AU/CN/IN/KR/JP) or just a replacement for the current NG?

No info on this. The official info that has been shown over and over is the max 8 or now called 737-8 will be use to takeover the longer routes formerly used by the 738. The max 10 or 737-10 option which mh is keen to install lie flat j class is facing certification delay in America on the other hand. But i believe the lie flat seats can be installed on the 737-8 if mh wants to in the event the 737-10 fails the timeline. It all depends on management.

Finally due to the small order of 25unit+10option, mh has to keep a dozen or more retrofitted 738s that will be doing ASEAN+Domestic trunk routes until year 2027 at least.

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Airbus Ahead of Boeing in US$10 Billion Malaysia Order Race

Source: https://themalaysianreserve.com/2022/07/06/airbus-ahead-of-boeing-in-us10-billion-malaysia-order-race/?fbclid=IwAR2pKmGxS9fv_dVFOnik2x9B_BuiRXD6vyEmCmJTOAhCUqn6RHzKhJS_tCg

AIRBUS SE is leading a race against Boeing Co. over the potential sale of about 30 wide-body aircraft to Malaysia Airlines as the Southeast Asian carrier, seeking more fuel-efficient jets amid a travel rebound, focuses on cost.

Airbus is offering its A330neo range of aircraft while Boeing is pushing its 787 Dreamliners, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. A decision may be announced as soon as later this month at the upcoming Farnborough International Airshow, the people said.

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 they should think ahead and get something future proof, rather than an update of an older plane. 
 

hope they won’t be shortsighted. However, if they are going the airbus way, I will be happy if they get some A350s along with A330neos… 

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On 7/5/2022 at 7:17 PM, jahur said:

Finally due to the small order of 25unit+10option, mh has to keep a dozen or more retrofitted 738s that will be doing ASEAN+Domestic trunk routes until year 2027 at least.

Thank you again for the info! :) Honestly, I don't think the 738 are that bad other than the legroom in Y seats (which is pretty similar compared to other airlines). You mentioned that they want to retrofit the 737 with new seats and to replace IFE with WiFi - will they be adding another row of Y (I assume the new seats will be slimline?)?

As far as new destinations/expansion go, are they mostly around the region (<5-6 hours flight) or are they looking at resuming some European/ME destinations at some point (e.g. CDG/AMS/IST/DXB). Is there a reason why MH doesn't really do seasonal flights other than Haj (e.g. seasonal summer flights to Europe since Europe is the place to be and to lose your bags/patience this summer?)

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2 hours ago, Craig said:

Thank you again for the info! :) Honestly, I don't think the 738 are that bad other than the legroom in Y seats (which is pretty similar compared to other airlines). You mentioned that they want to retrofit the 737 with new seats and to replace IFE with WiFi - will they be adding another row of Y (I assume the new seats will be slimline?)?

As far as new destinations/expansion go, are they mostly around the region (<5-6 hours flight) or are they looking at resuming some European/ME destinations at some point (e.g. CDG/AMS/IST/DXB). Is there a reason why MH doesn't really do seasonal flights other than Haj (e.g. seasonal summer flights to Europe since Europe is the place to be and to lose your bags/patience this summer?)

Heard seat pitch is maintained. You might see less seats on the front end of the cabin. Most of seat vendors issuing economy seats are slimline nowadays 😒. The old days of good y class are the so called premium economy. Cant do much with our current market force and yield in air travel. Malindo/batik is kind enough to try to instill good legroom on their 737s which is good.

 

For international there are plans to up gauge some of former 738 routes with 330 regularly. Sectors like HKG, KTM(noticed they already started 330 flights for this and heard this sector needs special rating), BOM, DEL, DPS, CGK, MNL. What we will see is mab reducing its presence into china(which everyone agreed was a bad move in 2016 to expand there). China will just be Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Shenzhen. Wont see harbin etc anymore. Former routes might be covered by firefly 737 but again if that actually succeeds. Firefly operation is still a what if scenario.

 

The money making routes for mab have always been in South korea, Japan, South Asia and Australia. But our gov since 2013 til 2020 at that period were asking most of the airlines to establish stronger route connections with China. But majority of the PRC market(except for Shanghai, Guangzhou) have been LCC driven. Imagine the 738 were flying business class empty to chengdu, hangzhou, while in Mumbai occasionally passengers were complaining they were overbooked on business class and back then the 21 a330 were fully utilised and mas was sending 738s to there. Neighbour flag carriers like Thai, Garuda and Sq do not have much presence into China secondary routes except MH as they know those routes are barely yielding and they usually assign subsidiary company to fly there instead. Another gripe was mh only having only 2 destinations into Japan while other ASEAN Flag carriers have 4 or more and those sectors were very yielding for them. Our gov were weak in negotiating slots and throwing everything into China instead.

 

As for europe, IST and AMS seems planned. But i would take this with a grain of salt until mab actually announces them as a destination. I saw the plan was mab needing 33 widebody aircraft and 40 narrowbody by 2024 q2. Firefly takeover requires 18-20 aircraft ish by 2023 q4.

 

For now MAB still relys some of the p2c demand for the 330s and this will be up to 2023. Japan and S.korea is still not fully open for mh to leverage on while South Asia and Asean is peaking up in demand and mh is already gearing on that.

Edited by jahur

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10 hours ago, jahur said:

For international there are plans to up gauge some of former 738 routes with 330 regularly. Sectors like HKG, KTM(noticed they already started 330 flights for this and heard this sector needs special rating), BOM, DEL, DPS, CGK, MNL. What we will see is mab reducing its presence into china(which everyone agreed was a bad move in 2016 to expand there). China will just be Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Shenzhen. Wont see harbin etc anymore. Former routes might be covered by firefly 737 but again if that actually succeeds. Firefly operation is still a what if scenario.

The money making routes for mab have always been in South korea, Japan, South Asia and Australia. But our gov since 2013 til 2020 at that period were asking most of the airlines to establish stronger route connections with China. Another gripe was mh only having only 2 destinations into Japan while other ASEAN Flag carriers have 4 or more and those sectors were very yielding for them. Our gov were weak in negotiating slots and throwing everything into China instead.

As for europe, IST and AMS seems planned. But i would take this with a grain of salt until mab actually announces them as a destination. I saw the plan was mab needing 33 widebody aircraft and 40 narrowbody by 2024 q2. Firefly takeover requires 18-20 aircraft ish by 2023 q4.

For now MAB still relys some of the p2c demand for the 330s and this will be up to 2023. Japan and S.korea is still not fully open for mh to leverage on while South Asia and Asean is peaking up in demand and mh is already gearing on that.

I saw the upgauge of KTM and HKG - I am more surprised about HKG. They aren't open and I can only imagine they are using the 333 for cargo capacity rather than for passenger (CX on the other hand is flying 2x daily 359/35K but only 2 pax service a week, the other 12 are P2C flights). DPS ticket prices are through the roof. I just checked my old DPS-KUL  e-ticket back in 2018. I bought a business ticket DPS-KUL roundtrip for about RM1000. Nowadays, you can't even fly one way KUL-DPS on MH with that price if you don't book it more than a month in advance (slightly cheaper ex-DPS but still, not cheap). #costoflivingcrisis

You mean we are the only major SE Asian country (ID, TH, MY, SG, PR, VN) that failed to get a daytime HND slot was due to our govt's weak slot negotiation? Even countries like Turkey, Finland, and Denmark/Sweden all managed to get a daytime slot at HND. Well with the ongoing Russia sanctions, one would hope that they will release the 2 pair of slots currently held by Russian carriers (and another 2 from Japanese carriers for Russia bound flights) to other airlines once JP opens up (like what Heathrow did with Russian carrier slots). Not too sure if Malaysia is high up on the list since MY market is still quite small for JP carriers relative to other SE Asia countries and Switzerland is fighting hard for a slot too.

I don't keep track of MH's current wide body fleet (is it 15 A333, 6 A332, and 6 A359?) and if they need 33 wide body by Q4 2024, don't they need order more wide body instead of a 1 to 1 replacement?

Edited by Craig

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12 hours ago, Craig said:

I saw the upgauge of KTM and HKG - I am more surprised about HKG. They aren't open and I can only imagine they are using the 333 for cargo capacity rather than for passenger (CX on the other hand is flying 2x daily 359/35K but only 2 pax service a week, the other 12 are P2C flights). DPS ticket prices are through the roof. I just checked my old DPS-KUL  e-ticket back in 2018. I bought a business ticket DPS-KUL roundtrip for about RM1000. Nowadays, you can't even fly one way KUL-DPS on MH with that price if you don't book it more than a month in advance (slightly cheaper ex-DPS but still, not cheap). #costoflivingcrisis

You mean we are the only major SE Asian country (ID, TH, MY, SG, PR, VN) that failed to get a daytime HND slot was due to our govt's weak slot negotiation? Even countries like Turkey, Finland, and Denmark/Sweden all managed to get a daytime slot at HND. Well with the ongoing Russia sanctions, one would hope that they will release the 2 pair of slots currently held by Russian carriers (and another 2 from Japanese carriers for Russia bound flights) to other airlines once JP opens up (like what Heathrow did with Russian carrier slots). Not too sure if Malaysia is high up on the list since MY market is still quite small for JP carriers relative to other SE Asia countries and Switzerland is fighting hard for a slot too.

I don't keep track of MH's current wide body fleet (is it 15 A333, 6 A332, and 6 A359?) and if they need 33 wide body by Q4 2024, don't they need order more wide body instead of a 1 to 1 replacement?

Hkg is the main cargo sendover for maskargo. Most of the consignment are sent over there and then forwarded by othef major cargo carriers. Dps is a heavy in demand for now. Have a relative trying to secure a hotel room in a 5 star resort which he used to visit occasionally only to be told the resort is being overbooked for an entire month in mid may to mid june and he has to postpone the trip. He got a similar issue with trying to book a trip into maldives and Mauritius rates are sky high and rooms limited. Might be sign of revenge lockdown by tourists.

 

HND slots are limited as i say our gov never bothered to negotiate for more with japan and were prioritizing China. You also have places like Sapporo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Nagoya and Sendai that VN,TG, SQ and even Garuda were able to handle 2 or more of them from the list while mh never bothered while undergoing 5 different management and leadership changes lol since early 2000s. Meanwhile starting in 2012, Mh was encouraged over and over to fly into secondary china sectors like Chongqing, chengdu, guilin, haikou, hangzhou, kunming, nanjing, tianjin and barely any of those destination worked. Non of the other asean flag carriers even bothered to set foot these places cause the market forces is non sustainable. Luckily as of late 2020, a good thing that the ceo was already adamant mh would no longer be forced into smaller destinations in China, while some of it may be assigned to firefly 737 instead.

 

Hopefully the gov does not pressure again. Our governments poor tourism marketing towards Japan and EU while putting everything into one basket(China) is mostly at fault. Malaysia used to be high on Japans list in early to mid 2000s. We are good in tourism but poor in maintenance and renewal and marketing and we are oddly stingy than our neighbors.

 

33 widebody with their network requirement then. Hence why management will retain some of the older a333 beyond 2025 when i saw the future planning. But you never know if the CEO managed to score beyond a 1 to 1 replacement for the NWA program.

Edited by jahur

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That is so true. Malaysia has closed most of their tourist offices in Western Europe and USA because of cost cutting. 
 

the government and MAS did concentrate on china but then failed to consider the rise of secondary Chinese airlines. These fly from Various second tier cities which are lower yielding.

MH should really focus on building a few core medium/long haul routes that will make money - and even if you replace aircraft 1:1, it should be fine as long as the aircraft has the range required. The current A330-300 can’t do non stop Europe flights without taking a payload hit. 
I suppose the A330neo could do non stop Europe/NZ flights, so even if we don’t get A350s, it gives me hope that further expansion can happen!!

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On 7/7/2022 at 5:19 AM, Izanee said:

 they should think ahead and get something future proof, rather than an update of an older plane. 

hope they won’t be shortsighted. However, if they are going the airbus way, I will be happy if they get some A350s along with A330neos… 

They are leasing 100% of this order - so it won't be a new order for Airbus, the planes will come from the leasing companies' order books. When leasing, there is not much need to future proof as they can always change planes anytime they want to.

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Actually, the current A330s aren't that elderly are they ? I can remember the big PR event involving our MW spotters at their reveal not that many years ago

They certainly don't wring out useful years from their equipment nowadays compared to say days of the A300, B737-400 ..... 😄

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On 7/8/2022 at 10:41 AM, jahur said:

HND slots are limited as i say our gov never bothered to negotiate for more with japan and were prioritizing China. You also have places like Sapporo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Nagoya and Sendai that VN,TG, SQ and even Garuda were able to handle 2 or more of them from the list while mh never bothered while undergoing 5 different management and leadership changes lol since early 2000s. Meanwhile starting in 2012, Mh was encouraged over and over to fly into secondary china sectors like Chongqing, chengdu, guilin, haikou, hangzhou, kunming, nanjing, tianjin and barely any of those destination worked. Non of the other asean flag carriers even bothered to set foot these places cause the market forces is non sustainable. Luckily as of late 2020, a good thing that the ceo was already adamant mh would no longer be forced into smaller destinations in China, while some of it may be assigned to firefly 737 instead.

Hopefully the gov does not pressure again. Our governments poor tourism marketing towards Japan and EU while putting everything into one basket(China) is mostly at fault. Malaysia used to be high on Japans list in early to mid 2000s. We are good in tourism but poor in maintenance and renewal and marketing and we are oddly stingy than our neighbors.

I thought our government was weak in negotiating HND slots but they never even bothered *mind blowing*. \

Malaysia's tourism campaign has always been lackluster at best. "Visit Malaysia Year 20xx" - who in the right mind (as a tourist) and see that and go "Oh it's Visit Malaysia year this year, maybe we should go visit Malaysia this year". Tourism Minister portfolio is almost always a consolation prize - more like "thank you for supporting me as PM and hope you continue to do so". Malaysia's natural attractions are absolutely gorgeous - but they always fail to promote those. Even Singapore with its limited land and lack of nature manage to promote it like one of the most beautiful countries in Asia.

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1 hour ago, Craig said:

I thought our government was weak in negotiating HND slots but they never even bothered *mind blowing*. \

Malaysia's tourism campaign has always been lackluster at best. "Visit Malaysia Year 20xx" - who in the right mind (as a tourist) and see that and go "Oh it's Visit Malaysia year this year, maybe we should go visit Malaysia this year". Tourism Minister portfolio is almost always a consolation prize - more like "thank you for supporting me as PM and hope you continue to do so". Malaysia's natural attractions are absolutely gorgeous - but they always fail to promote those. Even Singapore with its limited land and lack of nature manage to promote it like one of the most beautiful countries in Asia.

Another tendency of our tourism ministry. Promote msia on x country while marketing on country y discontinued "kita sudah buat satu-dua tahun cukup dah". Then Tourism number from country y dips then airlines struggle to maintain. Ministry never bother to reestablish marketing "citing poor response" while the airlines mostly foreign just terminates the route. Rinse repeat. Some tourism marketing actually takes more than 7 years to find some ROI but we usually tend to market for very short term and give up. Malaysia Gov behaves like they found the jackpot with China because how low effort it is the market and people start coming in masses. But again these are low yielding masses and the gov keeps putting everything over there willing to sacrifice market from former segments.

 

Meanwhile your Asean neighbours are constantly renewing marketing ads annually to a point the tv ads become spammy and cringy some for more than 20 years and they are still being able to try towards newer segments. But at least that sort of marketing works compared to ours.

 

Edited by jahur

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On 7/8/2022 at 10:04 PM, BC Tam said:

Actually, the current A330s aren't that elderly are they ? I can remember the big PR event involving our MW spotters at their reveal not that many years ago

They certainly don't wring out useful years from their equipment nowadays compared to say days of the A300, B737-400 ..... 😄

Average age of A330 fleet is 11.3 years old, which old by industry standard nowadays. Further breakdown average age:

  • A330-200 average age is 13.4 years, 9M-MTU being oldest at 17 years.
  • A330-330 is 10.1 years, 9M-MTA being oldest at 11 years.

Some of those airberlin A330-200s that went to other airlines have already been scrapped, for example Virgin Atlantic. VS unveiled an all-new J class for the fleet in June 2018, started using in Dec 2018, only to stop using after the pandemic hits. What a loss investment. 

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On 7/8/2022 at 10:04 PM, BC Tam said:

Actually, the current A330s aren't that elderly are they ? I can remember the big PR event involving our MW spotters at their reveal not that many years ago

They certainly don't wring out useful years from their equipment nowadays compared to say days of the A300, B737-400 ..... 😄

It is because the current A330s are all leased - so swapping them for newer, more fuel efficient aircraft would give a net benefit in terms of operating costs. In the old days, they own many of their planes - so they hang on to them for longer.

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330 successor rumored to be announced on Farnborough Air Show this july 18th but we'll see.

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On 7/12/2022 at 10:17 AM, JuliusWong said:

Average age of A330 fleet is 11.3 years old, which old by industry standard nowadays ...

Ah yes, I forgot about the A332s - they would have jacked up the average age somewhat

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On 7/12/2022 at 6:14 PM, flee said:

It is because the current A330s are all leased - so swapping them for newer, more fuel efficient aircraft would give a net benefit in terms of operating costs. In the old days, they own many of their planes - so they hang on to them for longer.

Does that mean the birds end up in the knacker's yard sooner than what would have been the case in 'the old days' ?

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43 minutes ago, BC Tam said:

Does that mean the birds end up in the knacker's yard sooner than what would have been the case in 'the old days' ?

The old days the hour utilisation rates and take off+landing cycle for mh aircrafts were very low to a point they could be kept for at least 20years. The 738 and current 333 now would need replacing at 11-15 years average. Airlines on the LCC front have to have theirs dispose within 7-8 years due to heavy usage. Then you have premium airlines in gulf replacing theirs in 10 years as they can afford to keep hard products in check or it is redundant as in the case of Thais and SQs very young a333 fleet being entirely replaced by a350. 

 

For why aircrafts that are still usable needing to be dispose. Well you can replace equipment avionics and pipping onboard brand new, but on heavily used aircraft the replacement cycle for such equipment even after it is being replaced is a lot shorter compared to a brand new aircraft or on an aircraft that has very low hours. Some countries that cant afford new planes basically hoard parts and replace them so quickly like lolipop which may not look efficient by current standards. For mh's 330 that will leave starting next year highly doubt any would see life except those being selected the freighter conversion module. 

 

Edited by jahur

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