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Mohd Suhaimi Fariz

MAS Privatisation

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On 8/16/2022 at 4:13 PM, BC Tam said:

I know it's rather blur and it's only someone's imagination at this point in time - but do the wau logos on tail and wingtip look different ?! 😁

I think we should not be too bothered with the Airbus rendering. It appears that it was done in a hurry as the VVIP event was scheduled in Putrajaya. Perhaps that was why only an MoU was revealed - the final details are yet to be nailed down.

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On 8/16/2022 at 2:32 PM, flee said:

We used to have BA, AF and LH serving KUL but they are gone as their yields are poor. Only KLM remains and that suggests that AMS may be a viable destination. MAS Kargo is already plying that route, so a daily flight to AMS might be sufficient to service the route with pax and cargo capacity.

KL has one contract none other carriers have: Shell. And KL has beyond KUL connections (probably a lot more now since China is closed to transit). I do not know about yields, but if you look at MH's LHR flights, they u-turned on reducing flights in November (traditionally very slow period) and they are only selling higher booking class on their LHR flights now. AF/LH has no beyond KUL traffic (other than domestic MY traffic that isn't served by SQ; PEN has the highest demand for both AF/LH outside of KUL). Like I said, MH missed the golden opportunity to return to Europe this summer. Fares are extremely high and flights are full (doesn't help when the MY government announced border reopening so late).

BTW, does anyone know what happened to FY's SZB flights? Are they over scheduling or did one their planes go tech. It seems like majority of flights later in the day are delayed by a few hours. 

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Does anyone know the reconfiguration schedule for the 738’s and which aircraft are being done?

The only one which I’m aware of being done so far is -MXV and this hasn’t flown since it’s recent scratch and sniff launch a number of weeks ago.

As a side note retrojet -MXA is now back in service after being in storage.

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19 hours ago, Craig said:

KL has one contract none other carriers have: Shell. And KL has beyond KUL connections (probably a lot more now since China is closed to transit). I do not know about yields, but if you look at MH's LHR flights, they u-turned on reducing flights in November (traditionally very slow period) and they are only selling higher booking class on their LHR flights now. AF/LH has no beyond KUL traffic (other than domestic MY traffic that isn't served by SQ; PEN has the highest demand for both AF/LH outside of KUL). Like I said, MH missed the golden opportunity to return to Europe this summer. Fares are extremely high and flights are full (doesn't help when the MY government announced border reopening so late).

I think both LHR and AMS had healthy cargo loads throughout the pandemic. That was why LHR flights did not stop. As for missing the golden opportunity, MAG does not have enough aircraft because its A330s were flying regional routes full of cargo and these are highly lucrative.

Flying to Europe requires extended block times as various wars and conflicts have caused diversions from the normal routes. Malaysia's largest trading partners are in Asia - so demand is naturally greater and the recent order for A330Neos confirms that MAG is not looking at long haul routes for the foreseeable future.

The present management does not have the luxury of unlimited government funds anymore - so their plans are necessarily not geared for expansion unless there is a strong business case.

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11 minutes ago, flee said:

Flying to Europe requires extended block times as various wars and conflicts have caused diversions from the normal routes. Malaysia's largest trading partners are in Asia - so demand is naturally greater and the recent order for A330Neos confirms that MAG is not looking at long haul routes for the foreseeable future.

Trade volume and passenger traffic don't necessarily correlate. The US is one of our largest trading partners but you don't see anyone launching flights. Trade with the UK is tiny in comparison but MH is making a killing out of LHR flights.

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21 hours ago, flee said:

Flying to Europe requires extended block times as various wars and conflicts have caused diversions from the normal routes. Malaysia's largest trading partners are in Asia - so demand is naturally greater and the recent order for A330Neos confirms that MAG is not looking at long haul routes for the foreseeable future.

The present management does not have the luxury of unlimited government funds anymore - so their plans are necessarily not geared for expansion unless there is a strong business case.

How much longer do you think MH 1/2/3/4 are now compared to say 2018/2019?!

Malaysia's top 5 largest trading partners: China, Singapore, US, Hong Kong, and Japan. Someone already mentioned that China outside of Tier 1 cities are more suitable for D7/AK. I can assure you that the demand between AU/UK and MY is much higher than US and MY despite much higher trade and population of the latter.

If you see TK, EK, QR increasing their capacity to KUL, it's not for travelers to/from JP, HK, SG. It's more likely for pax to Europe plus a handful to ME/US. TK/QR (plus MH) is back at their 2019 frequencies for KUL-IST/DOH. 

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From Simple Flying

Quote

Captain Ismail explained that the London service is doing incredibly well, performing at almost 100% load factors, especially regarding peak summer bookings between July and early September. The company is also reporting robust forward booking for the year-end holiday season.

But I guess MH should suspend LHR due to longer flying time or chaos at Heathrow tho. Or that MH/Malaysia has nothing to offer to the world. *sad face*

Edited by Craig

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Seems like MH has quietly increased their regional flights. 4th flight to BKK (MH780/781) is back (and come November, 5th flight is back on certain day as MH 774/775). DPS is 10x weekly (MH850/851 is back)

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26 minutes ago, Craig said:

Seems like MH has quietly increased their regional flights. 4th flight to BKK (MH780/781) is back (and come November, 5th flight is back on certain day as MH 774/775). DPS is 10x weekly (MH850/851 is back)

CGK seems to be slower to recover. As far as I can tell, still once daily but jumps to 5x 738 overnight as of NW22. Even SQ’s frequency isn’t quite near pre-pandemic. 

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On 9/6/2022 at 9:53 AM, Chris Tan said:

CGK seems to be slower to recover. As far as I can tell, still once daily but jumps to 5x 738 overnight as of NW22. Even SQ’s frequency isn’t quite near pre-pandemic. 

Slow business? Even GA is only flying 3x weekly CGK-KUL. I don't think MH has finalized their regional flights for NW22 yet. Most regional flights are showing pre-pandemic level for NW22. Seems like most increases are coming from destinations that are more tourist-centric. I don't get how places like HKT get 2 flights a day on F, Sa, Su and there are no flights between Tuesday and Thursday. 

 

In other news, Eithad and MH will cease code-share services beginning NW22.

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Once MAB get the A330neos, lets hope they would resume flights to Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other Europe destinations since they have range to fly there besides their Asia Pacific, Middle East and Oceania plans

Edited by Cheng Kit

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A380s to begin exiting early october. All will be flown to Europe for reconfiguration and cleanup for new owner apparently. Aircraft spotters might wanna bookmark every Mondays of every week. This is where one a380 will fly off per week until mid November. No departure timing schedule at the moment.

Firefly 737 transfer delayed. Aircraft no 4 delayed to end of this month not sure if no5 and 6 are still on schedule. Very hectic scheduling all being pushed on 3 aircrafts now. One breaks down and its Rayani flashbacks.

Edited by jahur

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7 hours ago, Cheng Kit said:

Once MAB get the A330neos, lets hope they would resume flights to Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other Europe destinations since they have range to fly there besides their Asia Pacific, Middle East and Oceania plans

If any of those have a shot at coming to fruition, it's AMS. They won't have enough frames for a big expansion, considering how the neos will be more of a 1 to 1 replacement for the current 333s.

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12 hours ago, jahur said:

Firefly 737 transfer delayed. Aircraft no 4 delayed to end of this month not sure if no5 and 6 are still on schedule. Very hectic scheduling all being pushed on 3 aircrafts now. One breaks down and its Rayani flashbacks.

Is one of the ATRs out of service? It seems like a lot of FY prop service are running late, especially towards the end of the day. I am more surprised about the 738 used for PEN-HKT - seems quite a big plane for low season travel between two cities. 

Any news who the new owners are? :)

Edited by Craig

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Fleet Update for Firefly (FY):

ATR 72-212A(500)    MSN 812          2-NEIL     ACIA Aero Capital     ferried 03-06sep22 SZB-HYD-MCR-CAI-TLS-LFBF-KEF     ex 9M-FYA

Source: https://www.skyliner-aviation.de/regdb.main?LC=nav4&page=2

The aircraft was last spotted at Iqaluit Airport, Canada.

  1. 9M-FYB MSN 814 is now 2-ELZE, currently stored in France.
  2. 9M-FYC MSN 821 is parked at Subang Airport.
  3. 9M-FYE MSN 840 is in long term storage in Subang Airport.

Leaving eight ATR 72-500 currently in operation.

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^^ With less a/c active than before, I guess that's the reason for their current delays.

I'm not privy to why the ATR72-600 were disposed off very young, but I wonder what the turboprop fleet expansion plans for FY are now, if any.

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On 9/9/2022 at 9:22 AM, Craig said:

Is one of the ATRs out of service? It seems like a lot of FY prop service are running late, especially towards the end of the day. I am more surprised about the 738 used for PEN-HKT - seems quite a big plane for low season travel between two cities. 

Any news who the new owners are? :)

Downsizing, Batik Malaysia is also doing something similar. All the years SZB has been operating at excess capacity while target crowd for the business community have not been well received to support SZB having 25-30 ATRs total. At most it can only handle 18 total.

Another issue is the reliability of the ATRs. Its widebly known ATR's dispatch reliability starts to dwindle once it reaches age 8years old. For the fokker 50s those start showing issues at age 12. The amount of breakdowns reported by local and neighboring foreign carriers has been well recorded. It's also one of the aircraft manufacturer carrying more than 20 passengers that legally allows a commercial go ahead to fly with passengers onboard if the autopilot is inoperable, fuel quantity indicator broken and many more. Stuff like these on the a320 and 737 results in mandatory grounding lol. Accountants are the only happy lot as the fuel burn is the cheapest out there. Other airline circumvent the dispatch issue by hoarding insane amount of parts and having spare aircrafts but sadly no one in MAG and Batik Malaysia are operating to that extent.

Hopefully the ATR fixes most of the issue with the upcoming ATR EVO. The Q400 on the other hand is too cost prohibitive for ASEAN.

Edited by jahur

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On 9/8/2022 at 8:58 PM, jahur said:

A380s to begin exiting early october. All will be flown to Europe for reconfiguration and cleanup for new owner apparently. Aircraft spotters might wanna bookmark every Mondays of every week. This is where one a380 will fly off per week until mid November. No departure timing schedule at the moment.

Firefly 737 transfer delayed. Aircraft no 4 delayed to end of this month not sure if no5 and 6 are still on schedule. Very hectic scheduling all being pushed on 3 aircrafts now. One breaks down and its Rayani flashbacks.

Hi jahur, any idea which frames will be transferred across to FY?

 

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2 hours ago, jahur said:

Downsizing, Batik Malaysia is also doing something similar. All the years SZB has been operating at excess capacity while target crowd for the business community have not been well received to support SZB having 25-30 ATRs total. At most it can only handle 18 total.

Another issue is the reliability of the ATRs. Its widebly known ATR's dispatch reliability starts to dwindle once it reaches age 8years old. For the fokker 50s those start showing issues at age 12. The amount of breakdowns reported by local and neighboring foreign carriers has been well recorded. It's also one of the aircraft manufacturer carrying more than 20 passengers that legally allows a commercial go ahead to fly with passengers onboard if the autopilot is inoperable, fuel quantity indicator broken and many more. Stuff like these on the a320 and 737 results in mandatory grounding lol. Accountants are the only happy lot as the fuel burn is the cheapest out there. Other airline circumvent the dispatch issue by hoarding insane amount of parts and having spare aircrafts but sadly no one in MAG and Batik Malaysia are operating to that extent.

Hopefully the ATR fixes most of the issue with the upcoming ATR EVO. The Q400 on the other hand is too cost prohibitive for ASEAN.

Do you think A220s and E-jets might be suitable for some of smaller airports in the country? For example, can LDU and MZV airports handle such aircrafts? Or is it a more cost effective than ATRs?

Seems to me Airbus and Embraer have been trying to woo our local airlines to buy these planes. 

Embraer's Malaysia report foresees potential for over 100 new routes within Malaysia, the region (nst.com.my)

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5 hours ago, Tom/PER said:

Hi jahur, any idea which frames will be transferred across to FY?

 

MLJ MLI MLK MLL with MLJ being the first to be transferred over as the 4th aircraft. Also it seems the remaining 9M-MS series will be brought over as well but it wont be anytime soon.

4 hours ago, Alif A. F. said:

Do you think A220s and E-jets might be suitable for some of smaller airports in the country? For example, can LDU and MZV airports handle such aircrafts? Or is it a more cost effective than ATRs?

Seems to me Airbus and Embraer have been trying to woo our local airlines to buy these planes. 

Embraer's Malaysia report foresees potential for over 100 new routes within Malaysia, the region (nst.com.my)

I dont know much about the Ejets but the A220 is a good and proper regional. Passenger comfort aspect the A220 has superior standard seats than the e-jets which are very tight.

Cockpit functionality i do know the a220 and e2 jet it is already ahead of the a320neo and 737NG. Fuel burn is definitely more than atr but as it carries more people it can offset. The only issue is whether they can fill up the plane viably. Places during low peak domestic, this aircraft may actually be needed for AK and MH. As for small airports with less than 1500meter runway like LDU. It will be too tight to operate unless one contends sending the aircraft to closeby destinations and offloading much cargo as possible even the ATR72 operating there are constraint when there's too much payload to carry and its sunny and hot. LDU needs a 500meter extension if it wants to fly them beyond 40min destinations. For MZV I am not sure if CAM will authorise MAHB to reopen the unused part of the runway due to terrain even the NDB beacon has been disabled many years ago as it was useless.

Airbus and Embraer has been promoting very occasionally but very little uptake so far. Only reason i can think off  why most of Asia has been bit shy in getting is probably no lucrative MRO+Simulator bundle or gov to gov manufacturing+trade bundle have yet been offered when compared to purchasing the a320 and a330 series.

Edited by jahur

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On 9/9/2022 at 4:33 PM, JuliusWong said:

Fleet Update for Firefly (FY):

ATR 72-212A(500)    MSN 812          2-NEIL     ACIA Aero Capital     ferried 03-06sep22 SZB-HYD-MCR-CAI-TLS-LFBF-KEF     ex 9M-FYA

Thank you.

18 hours ago, jahur said:

Another issue is the reliability of the ATRs. Its widebly known ATR's dispatch reliability starts to dwindle once it reaches age 8years old.

FY's ATR are around 10 years old now?

10 hours ago, jahur said:

I dont know much about the Ejets but the A220 is a good and proper regional. Passenger comfort aspect the A220 has superior standard seats than the e-jets which are very tight.

Cockpit functionality i do know the a220 and e2 jet it is already ahead of the a320neo and 737NG. Fuel burn is definitely more than atr but as it carries more people it can offset. The only issue is whether they can fill up the plane viably.

I agree that the A220 is great for passenger comfort. And I can see some cities around Malaysia or secondary/tertiary ASEAN cities that FY/AK/MH can serve with the A220/Embraers (the 737/320 looks oversize). But if FY were to get those A220/Ejets, they'd need to operate out of KUL instead of SZB since they are technically jet and not props (and I am not sure how Raya Airways get away with it with their 757/767s at SZB)?

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1 hour ago, Craig said:

FY's ATR are around 10 years old now?

I agree that the A220 is great for passenger comfort. And I can see some cities around Malaysia or secondary/tertiary ASEAN cities that FY/AK/MH can serve with the A220/Embraers (the 737/320 looks oversize). But if FY were to get those A220/Ejets, they'd need to operate out of KUL instead of SZB since they are technically jet and not props (and I am not sure how Raya Airways get away with it with their 757/767s at SZB)?

Yeap most are averaging 12 years old now with the oldest approaching 14 very soon. Reports from Maswings and Firefly that their atr72 were already having growing tech issue begining of 2013. There was a critical period when i recall Maswing only had 6 aircrafts and 4 were aog no spare to cushion the operational impact. In the old days 10% of your fleet would be on standby for such situation. Dwindling yields etc nowdays its pretty much 100% utilisation. 

The a220 can operate out of SZB but dont think it can properly hold the same amount of aircrafts than the atr72 fleet due to the larger size. One thing i did notice overseas was the regional jet fares technically being slightly higher than the 320/737 counterpart throughout. Not sure if msia would be able to accept it or not knowing we are a very price sensitive market.

As for operational issue in SZB. New gen aircrafts are technically quiet and should not be a noise burden nowadays. Raya 767 757 and old days 727 were a lot more noisier and as of today they still have early 2am morning arrivals not forgetting RMAFs c130s and a400ms so doubt noise concerns is the issue. SZB is just being constrained to avoid cannibalizing part of KLIAs traffic hence the turboprops only while Raya operating as cargo were not affected.

Edited by jahur

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