Turkish Airlines In Talks for 10 A380s Including MAS A380

[nrazmoor 0]

I think LHR cannot be changed due to the aircraft rotations to perform those flights. If both LHR and CDG is doing OK (at least, not losing money), they should be left alone and MH should not tinker wtih them till some other time.

 

 

 

Of course its not a straight forward thingy but its a doable i think..., If they want to reduce to only 1 daily LHR service they probably need to retime/renumber their flight accordingly to make sure they receive feeds from both end.

Edited February 19, 2015 by nrazmoor

[KK Lee 5]

I think MH should maintain their A380 service to CDG, reducing LHR to 1daily A380 only and introduce 1 daily A380 to AMS. They need to further leverage their partnership with KLM and at the same time try to score a new codeshare agreement with BA.

 

The most popular departure time for kangaroo route is to leave LHR and SYD in the evening and afternoon respectively. If MH to have one daily flight to LHR, MH will either let A380 idling for over 12 hours or accept lower yield and load.

[Josh T 0]

I think LHR & CDG should be left alone. The A380s have the hard product to still entice people to fly with them. Get rid of these and MH will definitely lose out to their competitors. What needs to happen is that some of their B777s need to be refurbished with the same product as their A380s because these planes are still being used for flights to AMS, FRA, IST, AKL & MEL. The current hardware is ok for regional flights and flights under 6 hours.

[leon t 0]

with this lease of 2 A380s to Turkish airline - MAS should also try to lease out the remainder 4 - as its too expensive to maintain just 4 A380s for their engineering dept to have its engineers n technicians maintained just to handle the 4 remaining A380s. MAS should seriously consider leasing a few 777ERs and some A333s to replace the shorter 777s routes - till MH have finalised its new aircraft orders.

[adibvanhalen 0]

 

The most popular departure time for kangaroo route is to leave LHR and SYD in the evening and afternoon respectively. If MH to have one daily flight to LHR, MH will either let A380 idling for over 12 hours or accept lower yield and load.

 

I think LHR & CDG should be left alone. The A380s have the hard product to still entice people to fly with them. Get rid of these and MH will definitely lose out to their competitors. What needs to happen is that some of their B777s need to be refurbished with the same product as their A380s because these planes are still being used for flights to AMS, FRA, IST, AKL & MEL. The current hardware is ok for regional flights and flights under 6 hours.

If the load factor of KUL-CDG all the while has been 60% or less, makes sense to utilise the B777-200ER for that. Falling crude oil price has been a boon to airliners this year, most delaying retirement of their old jets. Some of MAS' 777 can do with a fleet retrofit of 10-abreast like what KLM and UAL are doing..with slimline seats, pitch can be reduced from the current 34" to 31", think how many more rows of seats can be filled to increase from 282 pax to over 300-pax. If they replace the bulky old IFE with that of Lumexis fibre through the screen (FTTS) IFEs, that alone will reduce 2/3rd of weight of a traditional IFE per seat, imagine how many fuel saved if over a ton of weight is removed. With more seats, then MAS would be in a position to charge less for KUL-Paris flight added with their fly-rail agreement with TGV that can ferry passengers to their final destination all over France. Right now we are in no position to challenge Emirates or Qatar for their superior IFE content, despite enduring at least 90 minutes of layover in their respective hubs. MAS and Air France get you quicker to Paris but these Gulf powerhouses leverage their delay in getting you to their destination with their superior inflight services. Just last month MAS was advertising KUL-LHR for RM2499 and Emirates quickly countered by RM150 or so lesser.with Emirates you may get all 4 segments (KUL-DXB/DXB-LHR and back) with their A380 if lucky enough since they still play B777-300ER enroute from Dubai back to KUL or vice-versa...whereas with MAS it's the modern and quiet A380 all the way. Imagine if MAS offers RM2399 return with refurbished B777s..i don;t think AF can top that.with the right marketing and advertising, MAS can even upstage Emirates or Qatar for that sector. After all, they are night flights, how many of us wanna stay up to enjoy 6 movies back-to-back for a total of 12 hours approximately until we touch down in CDG?If the seats allow greater recline, and the angle-flat business seats are replaced with lie-flat seats, the business class can really fetch a premium price while economy-class passengers are more likely to opt for better rest for the night flight, saving hassle for the cabin crews, For the 3 A380s used for KUL-LHR's 2X daily flight, do we wanna give up that precious Heathrow slot?..Just read last month that a slot is worth approx GBP60 million or more when traded to a local low-cost carrier..(wonder if it's the same or more for a premium legacy carrier like MAS). 4-engine jets are usually meant for trans-oceanic flight, so I hope they get that US visa waiver done soon enough, 'cos in the west coast of US, only SFO and LAX are A380-ready airports. With MAS' current capacity of 494, that is enough weight for that range, however the return may require a lighter load due to the strong headwinds from the easterly jetstream.

If TK wants the 2 A380s for short-term til they decide they are convinced enough to lease from Amedeo or buy directly from manufacturer, then as soon as the US visa waiver is dealt with, we should deploy the jumbos to either once daily KUL-LAX or KUL-SFO, or simply to both cities as 3X weekly frequency. Imagine the traffic we can steal from Singaporeans who'd rather enjoy a long non-stop flight to US rather than transit in Tokyo via their SQ.

As for the Kangaroo routes, I wonder why MAS never thought of utilizing the slots (1-2 hours after arrival from major Australian cities) to use for departures for KUL-ATH or KUL-Zagreb since there are many Australian Greeks and Australian Croats residing down under.

[Izanee 0]

Before MAS can even consider flying to ATH or ZAG, ZRH and MAN should be resumed. MH used to fly to Zagreb in the early 2000s... I was always curious why but thank you for the explanation!

[adibvanhalen 0]

if TK gets the A380s, maybe it'd be used for capacity-constraint airports like LHR or HKG. If capacity is reduced like that of SQ and KAL, could it not make IST-MEL or IST-SYD non-stop? with the favorable jetstream?

[Mohd Suhaimi Fariz 2]

I was under the impression that Zagreb was a vanity destination - you know, we help keep the peace during the Yugoslav war & foster close ties with Croatia & Bosnia, why not have our national airline fly into one of the Balkan capital cities.

[BC Tam 2]

Before MAS can even consider flying to ATH or ZAG, ZRH and MAN should be resumed.

And if history is anything to go by, MAS should resolve the puzzle of accommodating a 100+% load factor before resuming MAN. Well, on a commercially viable manner anyway

[Kee Hooi Yen 0]

I remember circa 2004 when I board MH122 SYD-KUL, it showed the flight destination was BEY via KUL on Sydney airport FID

Edited February 24, 2015 by Kee Hooi Yen

[leon t 0]

As MH have not decided which anew aircraft to replace its 777s and even when it does - it stil take at least 25 years to 3 years at the earliest to get the new aircrafts - and hence MH must retrofit it existing 772s with new interiors immediately; and or lease the 773ERs if they need a bigger plane and to replace its A380s.

 

On Adibvanhalen view of deploying the jumbos to LAX and "steal from singaporeans...who enjoy a non-stiop instead of stopping in Tokyo" - please note that the A380s is Not capable of doing KUL-LAX/SFO Non-stop and hence this is incorrect statement.

[Alif A. F. 0]

18-19 hours of flight time is out of reach for A380 (unless the weight is penalised), but the aircraft can certainly be flown for 16-17 hours. Examples are SYD-DFW vv and DXB-LAX vv.

[KK Lee 5]

On Adibvanhalen view of deploying the jumbos to LAX and "steal from singaporeans...who enjoy a non-stiop instead of stopping in Tokyo" - please note that the A380s is Not capable of doing KUL-LAX/SFO Non-stop and hence this is incorrect statement.

It seems mh kul-tpe-lax was so low yield that never made a cent of profit.

 

CX, ek, qr are providing convenient connection to the u.s. MH needs to code share extensively in the u.s to compete.

Edited February 24, 2015 by KK Lee

[Mohd Suhaimi Fariz 2]

It seems mh kul-tpe-lax was so low yield that never made a cent of profit.

 

CX, ek, qr are providing convenient connection to the u.s. MH needs to code share extensively in the u.s to compete.

They do codeshare with American & it's somewhat comprehensive.

[KK Lee 5]

They do codeshare with American & it's somewhat comprehensive.

3 or 4 flights per week to lax didn't help.

[adibvanhalen 0]

Qantas fly an A380 from SYD to DFW, using the great circle mapper would be 13804km...KUL-SFO is less. KUL-LAX would be around 100-150km more than Qantas' world's longest flight. Qantas capacity is 484 pax, but it has heavier premium economy seats...4-class cabin to be exact. MAS seats 494, with only 3-class configuration. I believe it can be done. I once read a Qantas pilot stating the sweet spot for an A380 is 12-14 1/2 hrs of flight time..which makes KUL-LHR ideal..especially when Heathrow is penalizing airlines operating older noisier jets.

Airlines generally allow 2 checked-in baggage per pax to US destinations so the payload may not be fuflilled if not much room left for cargo in A380's belly, since the 777-300ERs has much more ample cargo space than the former.

The same Qantas pilot above stated that going easterly from APAC to US could be on full load, but return may require a non-full capacity to allow lighter load to counter the headwinds. "The new Qantas QF7 / QF8 routes Sydney – Dallas (Fort Worth) – Sydney sectors are the world’s longest routes and are up to 1,200 nm longer than the original A380’s Sweet Spot range.

• 6,980 anm (12,920 akm) route from Sydney to Dallas. The 7500nm (13,890 km) ground track is shortened 520 nm by hitching a ride on the 35 knot average tail winds on the Pacific for the 14.5 hour flight. A theoretical maximum of about 580 passengers could be planned on this sector.
• 7,885 anm (14,600 akm) route from Dallas to Sydney. This 7510 nm (13,910 km) route is biased towards the calmer 23 knot equatorial headwinds for the 16.3 hour flight. A maximum of about 385 passengers can be planned on this sector."

But then again since we're in One World, flying to the US west coast, can be uitlized with JAL while the east coast(via Europe/Atlantic) would be on American. So sticking to the sweet spot of flying time for the A380 to our existing routes, LHR, CDG, AMS, FRA would be more economical. As it is the only direct flight from a US city to Asean is JFK to Manila route on PAL. Thought MAS could give Aseans another option with KUL-SFO but then again what are alliance for, right?

[Chris Tan 0]

KUL-SFO nonstop? Dream on. Or any non-stop flights to the US, for that matter. Visa waiver or not.

 

The aircraft *may* be able to fly the route, but I'm sure it won't turn a profit. SFO itself isn't enough to sustain a whole lot of high-yield traffic, or SQ would've tried SIN-SFO nonstop. Even QF pulled out of SFO years ago.

 

KUL has never been "premium" enough to justify such prestigious routes. Not a single US carrier flies here so you can just imagine how large the US-Malaysia market is.

 

MH shouldn't fly the route just to "give Aseans another option". It is not a charity organization and the last thing they need is a route that's doomed to fail

[alberttky 0]

Turkish Airlines says will need Boeing 747, Airbus 380, no decision yet

 

Feb 25 (Reuters) - Turkish Airlines will need Boeing 747 and Airbus 380 in the future as it continues to expand its fleet but no management decision on the issue has been taken yet, chairman Hamdi Topcu told a news conference on Wednesday.

A senior executive at the airline said in January that it was considering expanding its fleet and was studying a list of Airbus and Boeing models including the A380.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/25/thy-planes-idUSL5N0VZ1MV20150225

[flee 5]

I wonder if TK will also lease a slot pair at LHR from MH to go with the A380s?

[Kee Hooi Yen 0]

TK has just acquired additional LHR slots from SAS

[flee 5]

As of today, there is no Board decision regarding the purchase or lease of an A380 aircraft. Turkish Airlines will not be operating an A380 aircraft in 2015.

 

Source: http://investor.turkishairlines.com/en/announcements/disclosures/detail/25-02-2015-public-disclosures-181

[Hakan 2]

Well, neither 2015, nor 2016 or beyond!!! Only possible chance to get seems like when the new airport opened.

 

But, our goverment continue to make (or trying) some major mistakes. As you know, new Istanbul mega airport (!) will be open early 2017, when under operation that will be completed first or two runways as stage1. Exist Ataturk Airport is facing "close" to operation when new airport works. The problem is; no one alternate airport for an a380 if Ataturk closed. (many peoples wants to keep Ataturk Airport alive for strategic airport for example executive airport, training centers, relief if necessary etc but government insist about to open construction for residence and shopping centers...)

 

747 has no problem but not comfy about fully load in summer session if THY wants to be use long haul flights. I'm sure they handle it but no chance to A380 before 2017, and then if they couldn't be managed at least two airport more than 150nm ahead of Istanbul for A380 operations.

[Mohd Azizul Ramli 2]

The construction progress of IST's 3rd airport.

 

 

 

Schedule completion in 2018.

[Radzi 2]

Any idea where the 3rd airport is?

[Mohd Azizul Ramli 2]

The location of Istanbul's 3 international airports.