MAS Privatisation

[JuliusWong 0]

On 6/6/2023 at 12:12 PM, Robert said:

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/location/malaysia-airlines-aims-begin-narrowbody-competition-q4

ISTANBUL—Malaysia Airlines intends to start a selection campaign later this year to cover the next stage of its narrowbody replacement needs, and the carrier is also looking to boost its widebody fleet.

The airline is likely to request proposals from manufacturers in the fourth quarter, Malaysia Airlines CEO Izham Ismail told Aviation Daily at the IATA AGM on June 5. It will seek board approval for this step in August.

If the board approves, the carrier could place an order within 12 months of the start of the selection campaign, Izham said. The airline would ideally like deliveries to begin in 2025, although realistically it may have to wait until 2026-27, he said.

Malaysia Airlines currently has 48 Boeing 737s in its fleet. It has existing orders for 25 737 MAXs to handle the first part of its fleet replacement.

The next order will be aimed at the second half of the narrowbody replacement. Both manufacturers and a range of types will be considered, including regional jets.

Meanwhile, the deliveries of the existing MAX orders have been delayed. The first of these is now expected in August, versus the previous target of May, Izham said. Malaysia Airlines expects to receive four MAXs by the end of this year.

The airline is planning to extend leases on some of its current 737s to cover for MAX delivery delays.

Malaysia Airlines is also looking to expand and refresh its widebody fleet. The carrier is seeking to lease another four Airbus A350-900s, which would be in addition to the six A350s it already operates, Izham said. The carrier would like to introduce them as soon as possible.

The airline is due to begin receiving its first A330neos in the third quarter of this year. These will be for replacement of the airline’s current A330 fleet.

Our neighbour up north Thai Airways (equally badly managed as MH) are adding 11 A350-900 (two have been delivered, additional rumoured to be coming from Azul Brasil's four with HNA Group current seven stored example) and will take five Airbus A321neos on lease from the second-half of 2025, and is in the final stages of securing another five examples to be delivered earlier. 

MH needs to up their game now. Production slots are blocked by massive order by Air India, Riyadh Air, United, Lufthansa in recent months, soon to be announced TK's 600 aircraft order and EK's order for at least 150 new widebody. IndiGo will place an order close to 500 A320 family aircraft soon and Flydubai may order another few hundreds. I am sure leasing houses are now busy closing deals with airlines too.

[Kee Hooi Yen 0]

On 6/6/2023 at 2:12 PM, Robert said:

The airline is due to begin receiving its first A330neos in the third quarter of this year. These will be for replacement of the airline’s current A330 fleet.

Has the A330neo uploaded in their reservation system yet ? Any idea which route will be the first to receive ?

[jahur 0]

2 hours ago, JuliusWong said:

Our neighbour up north Thai Airways (equally badly managed as MH) are adding 11 A350-900 (two have been delivered, additional rumoured to be coming from Azul Brasil's four with HNA Group current seven stored example) and will take five Airbus A321neos on lease from the second-half of 2025, and is in the final stages of securing another five examples to be delivered earlier. 

MH needs to up their game now. Production slots are blocked by massive order by Air India, Riyadh Air, United, Lufthansa in recent months, soon to be announced TK's 600 aircraft order and EK's order for at least 150 new widebody. IndiGo will place an order close to 500 A320 family aircraft soon and Flydubai may order another few hundreds. I am sure leasing houses are now busy closing deals with airlines too.

The A350s have advance the the signing stage from what i last heard 3 weeks ago. It now lies to cabin config selection and many pending things. Apparently they were 53 a359s from lessors up for grabs since mid march with deliveries(minus cabin plus depending on which production slots are kept by lessors) ready mid june to late november. Some slots are pricey but fully customizable some are very cheap but allows very limited configuration(e.g the 6x ex airberlin a332s). 

The only issue i see with MAG is everything is locked tight that outsiders and even employees are speculating as it feels that management have not been forthcoming. 

34 minutes ago, Kee Hooi Yen said:

Has the A330neo uploaded in their reservation system yet ? Any idea which route will be the first to receive ?

Unlikely we will see anything that early. At most the 330neo will be deployed on adhoc(nearby sectors less than 3hours on random rotation) for the first 2-3months with reservation only appearing 1 month in advance on the website. Even OD's A333s will be flown that way, overhead them planning Dhaka and domestics holiday seasons during the proving flight.

[JuliusWong 0]

30 minutes ago, jahur said:

The A350s have advance the the signing stage from what i last heard 3 weeks ago. It now lies to cabin config selection and many pending things. Apparently they were 53 a359s from lessors up for grabs since mid march with deliveries(minus cabin plus depending on which production slots are kept by lessors) ready mid june to late november. Some slots are pricey but fully customizable some are very cheap but allows very limited configuration(e.g the 6x ex airberlin a332s). 

The only issue i see with MAG is everything is locked tight that outsiders and even employees are speculating as it feels that management have not been forthcoming. 

Unlikely we will see anything that early. At most the 330neo will be deployed on adhoc(nearby sectors less than 3hours on random rotation) for the first 2-3months with reservation only appearing 1 month in advance on the website. Even OD's A333s will be flown that way, overhead them planning Dhaka and domestics holiday seasons during the proving flight.

Kind of surprised there were 53 A359s up for grab. I believe by now most of the slots are gone, if MH have gotten it, Izham would not be talking about seeking to lease rather than "already locked in" the four additional A359s. The other four will most definitely create a sub-type in MH fleet if they are pre-used, unless MH are getting new ones right from the Airbus factory via lessors. Perhaps MH are now running a very secretive operation especially among the senior management to avoid potential corruption and speculation by employees.

MSN for first A330-941neo is now assigned, MSN 2080. The airframe should be arriving in Toulouse in these few days , but I highly doubt it can be ready by end of 3Q, 2023. We are talking about July- Sept 2023. Achievable?

Edited June 7, 2023 by JuliusWong

[jahur 0]

57 minutes ago, JuliusWong said:

Kind of surprised there were 53 A359s up for grab. I believe by now most of the slots are gone, if MH have gotten it, Izham would not be talking about seeking to lease rather than "already locked in" the four additional A359s. The other four will most definitely create a sub-type in MH fleet if they are pre-used, unless MH are getting new ones right from the Airbus factory via lessors. Perhaps MH are now running a very secretive operation especially among the senior management to avoid potential corruption and speculation by employees.

MSN for first A330-941neo is now assigned, MSN 2080. The airframe should be arriving in Toulouse in these few days , but I highly doubt it can be ready by end of 3Q, 2023. We are talking about July- Sept 2023. Achievable?

Don't think we will receive any 330neo in q3. Late Q4 or mid november seems feasible. There were even speculations that we will receive 330neo ahead of the max 8 this is most likely false as well. The 4 units of max 8 even with delays will still be coming this year.

[Izanee 0]

Unfortunately it seems that MAS is behind the curve in this ‘rebound tourism’. We have literally no feed from Europe apart from LHR - concentrating only on china is a foolish venture. The money is in Europe/Middle East- people want to travel and are willing to pay the high prices. 
 

even TG is making money! Poor MH is now suffering from its previous mismanagement… the boy who cried wolf comes to mind! Now no one is willing to get their fingers burned 

[jahur 0]

4 hours ago, Izanee said:

Unfortunately it seems that MAS is behind the curve in this ‘rebound tourism’. We have literally no feed from Europe apart from LHR - concentrating only on china is a foolish venture. The money is in Europe/Middle East- people want to travel and are willing to pay the high prices. 
 

Need to ask our government what they have in mind. Family friendly oriented does not exactly attract farang youths who are eyeing on the night and wild scene. 

Lack of refined premium facilities also does not attract the high paying crowd some of these crowd are also flocking to our neighbours for the night scene.

Even dark tourism(haunted places) was not well accepted by our locals and budget was not put forward to set it up. We haven't even gotten to how underfunded it is in protecting our wildlife diversity which irked quite a lot of aussies and japanese who were former visitors. Prcs have no interest in sepilok or danum. 

We have to contend that Malaysia is only attractive towards mass tourism as it requires very low effort in financing and will not try out wider array different groups. 

[Robert 0]

21 hours ago, JuliusWong said:

Our neighbour up north Thai Airways (equally badly managed as MH) are adding 11 A350-900 (two have been delivered, additional rumoured to be coming from Azul Brasil's four with HNA Group current seven stored example) and will take five Airbus A321neos on lease from the second-half of 2025, and is in the final stages of securing another five examples to be delivered earlier. 

MH needs to up their game now. Production slots are blocked by massive order by Air India, Riyadh Air, United, Lufthansa in recent months, soon to be announced TK's 600 aircraft order and EK's order for at least 150 new widebody. IndiGo will place an order close to 500 A320 family aircraft soon and Flydubai may order another few hundreds. I am sure leasing houses are now busy closing deals with airlines too.

Even PAL are ordering new aircraft.

[flee 5]

6 hours ago, Izanee said:

Unfortunately it seems that MAS is behind the curve in this ‘rebound tourism’. We have literally no feed from Europe apart from LHR - concentrating only on china is a foolish venture. The money is in Europe/Middle East- people want to travel and are willing to pay the high prices. 

even TG is making money! Poor MH is now suffering from its previous mismanagement… the boy who cried wolf comes to mind! Now no one is willing to get their fingers burned 

Yes, MAG is working at snail's pace when ordering aircraft but expect the manufacturers to deliver "yesterday". Even if they ordered anything today, they should realistically be looking at 2026 deliveries - they can only hope to get accelerated deliveries if some other customer postpones or cancels delivery. Nowadays demand for new aircraft is so high that many airlines have to retain old aircraft pending the delivery of their new orders. MH is disadvantaged because all their planes are leased - so even if they extend their leases, the cost is higher than if the planes are owned. MAG management needs to do better fleet management and planning.

The other factor that has direct impact on MH is government policies - I think the Tourism Ministry has been largely sleeping for a long time due to the political games in the country. Yes, relying on China was very foolish - you should not put all your eggs in one basket. Even the Middle Eastern market disappointed as I think they prefer to visit Europe and not Malaysia. The Tourism Ministry must draw up a new strategy and stop relying on the tired tagline "Malaysia Truly Asia". That has been going for far too long!

[jani 0]

Surprised TG are expanding. If you fly to BKK you'll see tons of their parked planes.

[JuliusWong 0]

47 minutes ago, jani said:

Surprised TG are expanding. If you fly to BKK you'll see tons of their parked planes.

Those aircraft are older generation aircraft which TG has no plan to bring back into service and has largely been sold and waiting for paperwork to clear. Only the stored B777 fleet is currently being offer for sale.

1. SOLD: 10 B747-400 - HS-TGA, TGB, TGF, TGG, TGO, TGP, TGW, TGX, TGY, TGZ
2. SOLD: 3 A340-541- HS-TLA, TLB, TLC
3. SOLD: 6 A340-642 - HS-TNA, TNB, TNC, TND, TNE, TNF
4. SOLD : 1 A300-600R - HS-TAR
5. SOLD: 1 B737-400 - HS-TDF, TDG
6. ON SALE: 6 B777-200 - HS-TJA, TJB, TJC, TJD, TJG, TJH
7. ON SALE:  6 B777-300 - HS-TKA, TKB, TKC, TKD, TKE, TKF

They have also sold quite a number of older engines and parts. On sale are flight simulator as well. Six B777-2D7ER and three A330-343E were brought back to service temporarily until the new widebody fleet arrives.

Edited June 8, 2023 by JuliusWong

[JuliusWong 0]

4 hours ago, Robert said:

Even PAL are ordering new aircraft.

What an embarrassment right? MH remains the most sick among the bigger national carriers in South East Asia. In ICU kot? Even GA has A339neo and their A333ceo/B77W fleet are young. MH has no bargaining power by buying bits and pieces. Three pcs here, two pcs there, five here etc. Be gutsy enough buy 30/40 (15/20 firms and 15/20 options), at least you get the discounted price and slots. And if the plan turns south you can always move those money to future purchase. Airbus will be more than willing to accommodate than you running to Boeing. Oh well, this is MH we are talking about.

Edited June 8, 2023 by JuliusWong

[flee 5]

2 minutes ago, JuliusWong said:

What an embarrassment right? MH remains the most sick among the bigger national carriers in South East Asia. In ICU kot? 

Yes they are because the cash injections from Khazanah are only sufficient as ICU drips. They got no money to pay to get out of ICU!

[JuliusWong 0]

4 hours ago, flee said:

Even the Middle Eastern market disappointed as I think they prefer to visit Europe and not Malaysia. The Tourism Ministry must draw up a new strategy and stop relying on the tired tagline "Malaysia Truly Asia". That has been going for far too long!

Middle Eastern are now rich enough not to come to Asia, Europe and the US are their main holiday destinations now. There is only that much you can promote Malaysia as "Islamic" destination. Why build a Middle East theme park in the middle of nowhere when the Middle Eastern they themselves want to "escape" from during their holiday?? And with Riyadh Air and Saudia new 78 B787 and their mega-airport, pretty sure they won't be flying MH to Malaysia.

[JuliusWong 0]

6 hours ago, jahur said:

Need to ask our government what they have in mind. Family friendly oriented does not exactly attract farang youths who are eyeing on the night and wild scene. 

Lack of refined premium facilities also does not attract the high paying crowd some of these crowd are also flocking to our neighbours for the night scene.

Even dark tourism(haunted places) was not well accepted by our locals and budget was not put forward to set it up. We haven't even gotten to how underfunded it is in protecting our wildlife diversity which irked quite a lot of aussies and japanese who were former visitors. Prcs have no interest in sepilok or danum. 

We have to contend that Malaysia is only attractive towards mass tourism as it requires very low effort in financing and will not try out wider array different groups. 

In summary, neither here nor there tourism.

Sea and beaches - Bali and the Philippines are better.

Forest - may worth a shot. 

Nightlife - Bangkok and Vietnam win hands down.

Adult entertainment - Thailand stronghold.

Cheap alcohol - Cambodia.

Temples/ history/ culture - Indonesia, Thailand.

Old rustic quiet getaway - Laos, Myanmar (if you are daring enough).

Modern clean efficient Branded stuff -Singapore.......

............................Malaysia, mana you?? Food? Marketing campaign apa macam?

Edited June 8, 2023 by JuliusWong

[Adam Lawrence 0]

1 hour ago, JuliusWong said:

In summary, neither here nor there tourism.

Sea and beaches - Bali and the Philippines are better.

Forest - may worth a shot. 

Nightlife - Bangkok and Vietnam win hands down.

Adult entertainment - Thailand stronghold.

Cheap alcohol - Cambodia.

Temples/ history/ culture - Indonesia, Thailand.

Old rustic quiet getaway - Laos, Myanmar (if you are daring enough).

Modern clean efficient Branded stuff -Singapore.......

............................Malaysia, mana you?? Food? Marketing campaign apa macam?

Most of the countries (except Thailand) that you listed are overrated than Malaysia. I feel that the things that we really lack are marketing & promotions.

[Kee Hooi Yen 0]

4 hours ago, Adam Lawrence said:

Most of the countries (except Thailand) that you listed are overrated than Malaysia. I feel that the things that we really lack are marketing & promotions.

Agreed.

I have many friends in Australia who have been to Malaysia enjoy and like Malaysia, and they don’t mind to go back again. There is even one keep going back to Langkawi for 3 times.

I believe Malaysian tourism lacks of effective marketing to promote itself to let more people know about Malaysia.

On another note, I could be wrong but I feel Malaysia has no clear and unique identity in the eyes of foreigners unlike our neighbouring countries. They often relate Malaysia to Indonesia.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Kee Hooi Yen

[JuliusWong 0]

4 hours ago, Adam Lawrence said:

Most of the countries (except Thailand) that you listed are overrated than Malaysia. I feel that the things that we really lack are marketing & promotions.

Overrated or otherwise is very subjective. Have you seen the numbers flowing through airports in Vietnam, the Philippines or Bali for that matter?? One thing for sure, airlines are not clamouring to fly into Langkawi. Even Qatar Airways has put it on back burner.

Edited June 8, 2023 by JuliusWong

[Izanee 0]

A lot of this is due to poor marketing and lack of direct flights to Europe.

when Jibby was in power, they had wasted so much money that they had to shut down the tourist offices throughout Europe and the US. 
mH also made a stupid deal with EK during Mueller’s reign when he stopped all the 777 routes to Europe and channelled passengers onto EK flights. Then he left MH to go to EK. 
 

Malaysia had a head start for tourism but botched that one up badly. 

it’s a shame as we have amazing nature, beautiful beaches, diverse culture and modern cities. 
 

you don’t see the promotion they used to have in Europe and elsewhere. Now it’s even easier with social media and influencers… but we’ve even let that one slip. 
 

 

[Chris Tan 0]

Just going by the material by Tourism Malaysia on YouTube and Instagram from the past few years, it's painfully evident that the marketing is gaining very little traction.

IMHO the best campaign was back around the VMY 2007 era. A classy set of ads that weren't cheesy and could hold a candle to international standards. Not quite the ads of today which cling on to our cultural diversity like it's the only thing we have to offer. It's as if the folks in charge have completely lost touch with what resonates with an international audience, and continue to push a cringeworthy local point of view of what makes Malaysia special. Sorry, but people do not fly halfway around the world to watch a traditional dance. 

Singapore knows it doesn't have the natural draw of Thailand/Indonesia etc, but look at how it markets itself to the world. The 'Passion Made Possible' campaign is incredibly popular online. Catchy, impactful, and more importantly, sells the country as a destination. Ditto for SQ's latest marketing campagin. Meanwhile, Vietnam is enjoying a halo effect from being the darling of social media. The number of reels I've been seeing about that train line that runs through a market is ridiculous, but it works. The numbers don't lie.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/1/16/malaysia-tourism-recovery-lags-thailand-indonesia-vietnam

I'm mindful that this is an MH thread, after all, so let's not forget that they too have an important role to play in this. We don't have Phuket's wild beach parties or Singapore's glamorous streets. But we do have a strategically-placed KLIA that does have the potential to connect all those destinations to far-flung places. Back when MH was a real global carrier, Malaysia was a popular stopover point. Even if Malaysia isn't their primary destination, we'd still benefit from being an air hub. Fair enough, it's not sustainable to return to the days of dart-throwing, but a better-connected MH does go a long way in putting the country on a map. With no service to Europe-proper, we lost out big time on all that pent-up demand to DPS/HKT etc. 

Lastly, if we can't afford all of that, the least that can be done is to minimise negative publicity. Calls to ban 'sinful' displays like beachwear and alcohol or making a spectacle of seizing watches seem to be far more impactful than our tourism ads these days.

 

[kandiah k 0]

3 hours ago, Chris Tan said:

 

lastly, if we can't afford all of that, the least that can be done is to minimise negative publicity. Calls to bad 'sinful' displays like beachwear and alcohol or making a spectacle of seizing watches seem to be far more impactful than our tourism ads these days.

 

Adding on; the extremism amongst our politicians and some Malaysians to ban things like concerts and relating it to drugs and bad behavior's, banning comedians because they are transgendered?, etc does not bode well with our incoming tourist or even many locals. Of course thanks to the lackadaisical attitude of our key decision makers has brought about this mess. We only see airlines increasing flight frequencies to our neighboring countries, yet Malaysia does not stand out despite being the top 20 airports in the world pre-pandemic. The branding is messed up, do we want people of other cultures and faiths to come to Malaysia?

What is the issue and how are we tackling it moving forward? We have so much to offer but as mentioned, we have a crappy main gateway, pathetic offerings by our national carriers, unwelcoming & heavily restrictive tourism, complacency, lack of accountability of airport operators, power struggle in these organizations and many more. We are in a mess indeed! This is just my point of view, I think we can do way better than what we have currently. Blaming the pandemic is really unacceptable because our neighbor down south took the opportunity to refurbish their terminals during the pandemic, once the pandemic was over, voila they had everything in place for the influx and suppressed travelers. What did we do? Aerotrains continued to get further damage and eventually halted the service, terminal was and still a mess, staff have become more incompetent, bosses have increased their expectations to make up for losses and demand the sky and the moon from the staff with no proper remuneration, no retraining or reassessment post-pandemic, airlines have dived into a greed mode to milk everything from the customers and also their own staff to ensure that the top heavy are well fed. I think we should do something and this is a good opportunity to improve moving forward. Our other friends in Southeast Asia are rapidly moving and we are going to be left behind, far far behind because we are focusing on the wrong things. Tina Turner's concert in the 80's comes to mind. What a shame! 

Does anyone have contacts with the right decision makers to have a forum with us? Oh well, lethargy at its best!

 

[Adam Lawrence 0]

10 hours ago, JuliusWong said:

Overrated or otherwise is very subjective. Have you seen the numbers flowing through airports in Vietnam, the Philippines or Bali for that matter?? One thing for sure, airlines are not clamouring to fly into Langkawi. Even Qatar Airways has put it on back burner.

The last time I checked, I did not see airlines such as British Airways, Lufthansa, Swiss, United, etc flying to Vietnam or the Philippines. And talking about Bali, they have 1 of the most dirty and polluted beaches in this world.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Adam Lawrence

[Adam Lawrence 0]

8 minutes ago, kandiah k said:

Adding on; the extremism amongst our politicians and some Malaysians to ban things like concerts and relating it to drugs and bad behavior's, banning comedians because they are transgendered?, etc does not bode well with our incoming tourist or even many locals. Of course thanks to the lackadaisical attitude of our key decision makers has brought about this mess. We only see airlines increasing flight frequencies to our neighboring countries, yet Malaysia does not stand out despite being the top 20 airports in the world pre-pandemic. The branding is messed up, do we want people of other cultures and faiths to come to Malaysia?

What is the issue and how are we tackling it moving forward? We have so much to offer but as mentioned, we have a crappy main gateway, pathetic offerings by our national carriers, unwelcoming & heavily restrictive tourism, complacency, lack of accountability of airport operators, power struggle in these organizations and many more. We are in a mess indeed! This is just my point of view, I think we can do way better than what we have currently. Blaming the pandemic is really unacceptable because our neighbor down south took the opportunity to refurbish their terminals during the pandemic, once the pandemic was over, voila they had everything in place for the influx and suppressed travelers. What did we do? Aerotrains continued to get further damage and eventually halted the service, terminal was and still a mess, staff have become more incompetent, bosses have increased their expectations to make up for losses and demand the sky and the moon from the staff with no proper remuneration, no retraining or reassessment post-pandemic, airlines have dived into a greed mode to milk everything from the customers and also their own staff to ensure that the top heavy are well fed. I think we should do something and this is a good opportunity to improve moving forward. Our other friends in Southeast Asia are rapidly moving and we are going to be left behind, far far behind because we are focusing on the wrong things. Tina Turner's concert in the 80's comes to mind. What a shame! 

Does anyone have contacts with the right decision makers to have a forum with us? Oh well, lethargy at its best!

 

Do you know that Maldives imposed a very strict rules towards foreign visitors visiting their island nation? Only certain areas/beaches where tourists can consumed alcohol and wear skimpy swimwear, yet you can see the high number of airlines (particularly from Europe) that flying to their airport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velana_International_Airport

The reason is simple. Because Maldives is more popular and well-known among foreigners than our country. Again, it is all about marketing & promotion.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Adam Lawrence

[jahur 0]

20 minutes ago, Adam Lawrence said:

Again, it is all about marketing & promotion.

Budgeting is the main concern i am seeing. Operating expenses is only increased to account for inflation but never further up to try out new markets. Promotion materials are affected by this. I mean even Zoo Negara is dried up with no available expenses to upgrade the facilities hopelessly waiting for NGO, GLC donations. 

Its the same for sepilok took 10 years for them to beg state gov to finance and complete a jungle walk. Then there's the culture of Malaysia in buying fancy stuff but never planning on renewal and replacement. "If its working it aint broke" is not a good concept to use. 

[JuliusWong 0]

1 hour ago, Adam Lawrence said:

The last time I checked, I did not see airlines such as British Airways, Lufthansa, Swiss, United, etc flying to Vietnam or the Philippines. And talking about Bali, they have 1 of the most dirty and polluted beaches in this world.

Those European airlines don't need to, because those passengers would have flown in via BKK and SIN hubs and go on SEA countries hopping. or hop on one of those big 3 ME carriers +TK. Please compare how many daily flight and pax load into Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines via SIN/BKK hubs vs. those into KUL. Again, dirty and polluted to you but not to others. For argument sake, Emirates has just started a high density A380s flight into Bali. SQ Group has eight daily flight into DPS. That goes to show Bali is something, and those flying into Bali are not necessary visiting Bali. Lombok/ Surabaya/ Surakarta/ Malang are just a short hop away by boat or domestic flight.

Edited June 9, 2023 by JuliusWong