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MH 738 cabin reconfigurations

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Just flew on the 738 to LGK, the old config. 
the seats were reasonably comfy. IFE of course is out of date. 
but from what people are saying, the new config is going to make it a worse experience. 
Does SQ do the same for their 738 max 8?

it would seem stupid for MH to offer an LCC type service - unless they’ve really given up on competing with SQ

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3 hours ago, Izanee said:

Just flew on the 738 to LGK, the old config. 
the seats were reasonably comfy. IFE of course is out of date. 
but from what people are saying, the new config is going to make it a worse experience. 
Does SQ do the same for their 738 max 8?

it would seem stupid for MH to offer an LCC type service - unless they’ve really given up on competing with SQ

SQ MAX has J class lie flat, with inseat IFE, Y class, has inseat IFE, with charging port. Their soon-to-be-retired B737NG has streaming IFE for both J and Y class, recline cradle seat for J. https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/ph/flying-withus/cabins/ They only fly their B737NG on their KUL and HKT flight now.

They have given up competing with SQ some time ago due to direct and indirect reasons. Both airlines are in different leagues. SQ is able to charge premium fare, due to its perceived branding, all international route operation (connecting pax from the US, Europe, China and Australia/NZ) and passengers who are willing to pay more for their expected premium services. Naturally they will ask/ expect better in seat IFE, good inflight meals etc. As for MH, they are battling LCC in home front with shrinking domestic coverage, limited international coverage (at least at China, Europe and the US front) majority passengers who wants fares to be cheap cheap, a totally different clientele. Ask any sane person out there if they are willing to pay SQ price for MH flight, they will most probably laugh at you.

It is a tricky balance for MH. SQ recently started serving their meal in card box in their Y, boy, did that raise a storm among the locals/netizens. Malaysia Airlines will be like: First time?

Also due to current supply chain issue in many industries, a lot of microchips, electrical panels, boards and related are being channeled to critical industries, Airbus and Boeing delivery are heavily hampered now. MH can wait for supply chain to stabilise, but till when they can wait out? Every other airlines are joining the queue to get their aircraft. OEMs are not producing their product fast enough. With MAX delivery later in July 2023, without the new upgrade there will be disparity between the MH and MAX in the long run.

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2 hours ago, Izanee said:

Does SQ do the same for their 738 max 8?

it would seem stupid for MH to offer an LCC type service - unless they’ve really given up on competing with SQ

I don't think MH is trying to compete with SQ. If anything, MH is placing their code on SQ so they can fly MH passengers everywhere 🤣. In all honesty, MH's new 738 configuration is the same as QF's new 738 configuration (same number of J+Y seats and both are dark - i.e. no IFE) but doesn't mean it's good. It's just where the world is heading now - everyone wants cheap fares.

SQ and to a certain extent, Singapore, is great at marketing themselves as "world class". However, that's all fluff. World's widest business class bed? Sure if you want to slept an angle and contort your body if you are taller than 178cm. I am not a fan of their business class beds because it's really difficult to sleep on that seat/bed (be it the 77W/359/380 newer J). I'll make an exception for the bulkhead row - those are comfortable. Give me CX/BR reverse herringbone, JL Apex sky suite anytime. Heck, I slept better on TK's 333/77W J seats than SQ's non-bulkhead J.

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I’ve done multiple flights in the new cabin (both J & Y class) and generally feel disappointed with the new seats.  
The moving map works only about 1 in 6 times, the seats are too hard, the light plastic finish has many dark scuff marks, the gap between the seats in row 3 and the lack of a cabin divider is something many inc myself dislike, the seats are too hard with Y class being worse, the seating bar below the J aisle seats restricts your feet movement.

 

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6 hours ago, Robert said:

I’ve done multiple flights in the new cabin (both J & Y class) and generally feel disappointed with the new seats.  
The moving map works only about 1 in 6 times, the seats are too hard, the light plastic finish has many dark scuff marks, the gap between the seats in row 3 and the lack of a cabin divider is something many inc myself dislike, the seats are too hard with Y class being worse, the seating bar below the J aisle seats restricts your feet movement.

 

I have done it once and I say never again. Intra-peninsula/SG/KNO sure - anything works for me but not anywhere further. Y is probably same if not worse than Euro Y now.

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Seems like MH has a new code for their newly refurbished 737s. "738" is old configuration and "73H" is the new configuration, subject to last minute swap of course.

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On 4/26/2023 at 10:55 AM, JuliusWong said:

As for MH, they are battling LCC in home front with shrinking domestic coverage, limited international coverage (at least at China, Europe and the US front) majority passengers who wants fares to be cheap cheap, a totally different clientele. Ask any sane person out there if they are willing to pay SQ price for MH flight, they will most probably laugh at you.

I have wondered why MH does not use FY more effectively - why not setup FY as their LCC arm, like TR is to SQ?

MH would then not be saddled with the task of providing cheap fares. They can operate a FSC international network with some trunk domestic routes. They can use A339/359/A35K for the medium and long haul routes and  737 Max 10 or A321 for their domestic flights. By giving different market segments to FY and MH, they can both specialise and become the best in their categories. Hybrid models don't seem to work that well (although there are exceptions like ANZ).

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I flew back to KUL on MH’s newly configured 737-800. Seats are just about ok for an hour’s flight. The IFE was using my phone, and the kids were happy with the movies. The stream quality was very good. 
the pilot did a ‘go-around’ due to the horrible weather (? Wind shear) - resulting in him flying through massive storm clouds and the ensuing turbulence- passengers were screaming etc etc. I started thinking about Netflix Conspiracy theories the way the plane was bouncing up and down, left and right. 

 and I thought that he would divert… but then he tried the second time and thankfully we landed ok. 
 

my 3 year old daughter was excited and wanted us to ‘do it again’. I said no. 
 

there was no mention of any of it but they did a good job to get us down safely. 

 

Edited by Izanee

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Not sure why the map hardly ever works on in teh new cabin and also strange is that the map part of the flight info in the old cabin often a blank screen with the stats appearing from item to time.

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Flew with tbe cabin twice. My moms ipad pro kept disconnecting while my android phone was connected. Then somehow they rebooted the thing and my phone kept disconnecting and the ipad maintained connection. Only good part of the intranet ife is it easier to skip parts of the movie/tv show previously the panasonic ife seeking was very laggy. GUI is also a lot better on android chrome and ios safari browser than the previous panasonic.

Another issue is they seem to only enable the wifi at 30000feet above and they turn it off 10minutes after descent. So if it were a 1hour 30minute flight you're probably subjected to only 30-45minutes worth of ife content with the other parts of the flight without wifi during climb and descent. The procedure needs a complete overhaul. 

Seat wise not much to complain as i got more knee room than the previous cabin.  So far i flew a 1 hour 30minute flight and another 2 hours 15 minutes on economy. Not sure how i will tolerate on a 4hour flight though. 

Edited by jahur

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I wonder why the "old" seats needed replacing ? IMHO don't think I've seen any being very worn and even so, it can't be more expensive to replace a few old seats than a complete cabin ?

MH just needed to add inflight INTERNET and I'll gladly fly them just to stay connected.

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13 hours ago, Timothy said:

I wonder why the "old" seats needed replacing ? IMHO don't think I've seen any being very worn and even so, it can't be more expensive to replace a few old seats than a complete cabin ?

MH just needed to add inflight INTERNET and I'll gladly fly them just to stay connected.

The old seat model under Haeco brand were under circa 2007 selection will no longer in production within 2024. by 2019 most of the economy class seats offered by manufacturers  nowadays are slimline light with only minor customization applicable to postering skin type, headrest, arm rest length, recline angle. The sad thing is even cushion padding for business class got thinner by average on the last survey check done by qatar airways and singapore airlines product department and they have a hard time deciding. 

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On 5/5/2023 at 8:25 PM, Timothy said:

I wonder why the "old" seats needed replacing ? IMHO don't think I've seen any being very worn and even so, it can't be more expensive to replace a few old seats than a complete cabin ?

MH just needed to add inflight INTERNET and I'll gladly fly them just to stay connected.

The US FAA/ EU EASA/ or whichever authority certification for the seat should be expiring soon, or has ended therefore necessitates the refurbishment. Meaning, the seats are in the end of shelf life. In addition, new IFE audio, movies etc (God forbid 4K HD version) will require higher resolution = higher capacity graphic card to support fast interaction, those old seat IFE box would not be able to support it.

Edited by JuliusWong

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54 minutes ago, JuliusWong said:

The US FAA/ EU EASA/ or whichever authority certification for the seat should be expiring soon, or has ended therefore necessitates the refurbishment. Meaning, the seats are in the end of shelf life. In addition, new IFE audio, movies etc (God forbid 4K HD version) will require higher resolution = higher capacity graphic card to support fast interaction, those old seat IFE box would not be able to support it.

There are much older hard products flying around. Why is this particular version so prone to issues? IFE shouldn’t be a reason at all. It’s common for airlines to keep the same IFE system/resolution after retrofitting new seats.

This refurb is nothing but a cost-cutting measure. Slimmer, lighter seats are sadly the trend.

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Just realised that in the new cabins the front row of economy seats (row 4) are now classed as extra leg room seats and chargeable owing to the lack of a full height cabin divider. SGD 16.5 for SIN-KUL. Will give it a miss :)

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Just completed a couple of 2+ hr flights on these new seats and they are horrible for me. Comfort was so so only in the upright seat position and even then, the headrest did not fully support the back of my head. At a slight recline, lumbar support is non existent and I could not find a comfortable seating posture. So I gave up and sat upright instead. IFE was like what the others here described and the "Your Flight" feature was not operating.

I really think that this seat is borderline acceptable on 2 hr flights but if flights exceed 3 hrs, it will be quite a torture, especially if it is a full flight and there is no vacant seat beside you.

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On 5/8/2023 at 1:07 PM, Chris Tan said:

There are much older hard products flying around. Why is this particular version so prone to issues? IFE shouldn’t be a reason at all. It’s common for airlines to keep the same IFE system/resolution after retrofitting new seats.

This refurb is nothing but a cost-cutting measure. Slimmer, lighter seats are sadly the trend.

Garuda has already replaced their seats on some of the 738s with a different model. Most airlines undergo refurbishing once the seat has hit certain cycle for full service within 10 years. Even MASWings twin otter viking have already replaced the original delivered seats that came with the aircraft using recycled material from unused b772 and B744 seats.

I do have to agree though the new seats that airline are refurbishing to are just there for revenue increase not to improve comfort. Cant source back the old original seat models anymore unless it was 5 years ago. Even the old seats under Haeco that MH took with 9M-MXA onwards the current Model is Haeco economy and is reported to be 1inch thinner in cushioning and 36% lighter.
https://www.timco.aero/content/haeco-cabin-solutions-vector-economy.html

There's an even thinner model called Haeco light.
https://www.timco.aero/content/haeco-cabin-solutions-vector-light-0.html

 

Almost 92% of the airline industry opted the lighter seats in exchange of adding more rows of seats very tiny numbers of operator resorted to retaining the same amount of seats as per pre refusbish config. 160 seater b738 was the norm in 2010, in 2023 more than half of 738 operators full service carriers are changing to 178 2 class cabin. Even Airbus tossed the idea with space flex galley and toilet redesign in 2013 for the a320 series which from a 148 norm 2 class to a now 166 2 class config or 188 1 class.

Edited by jahur

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12 hours ago, flee said:

I really think that this seat is borderline acceptable on 2 hr flights but if flights exceed 3 hrs, it will be quite a torture, especially if it is a full flight and there is no vacant seat beside you.

Agreed. I flew it MYY-KUL and I thought it was almost at the tipping point of torture flight. TWU/SDK would be a big no no, and god forbid, PER/DEL/BOM/PVG.

4 hours ago, jahur said:

Almost 92% of the airline industry opted the lighter seats in exchange of adding more rows of seats very tiny numbers of operator resorted to retaining the same amount of seats as per pre refusbish config. 160 seater b738 was the norm in 2010, in 2023 more than half of 738 operators full service carriers are changing to 178 2 class cabin. Even Airbus tossed the idea with space flex galley and toilet redesign in 2013 for the a320 series which from a 148 norm 2 class to a now 166 2 class config or 188 1 class.

Ah the good old days when we thought 180 on the 320 was bad! At least we haven't sunk down to gone Euro J/Y yet.

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