Malaysia Airlines is increasing its capacity to many routes on its network through additional flights and bigger capacity aircraft for the Northern Summer operating pattern effective 31 March 2013.
Group CEO, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said, “The capacity increase is made possible as we take delivery of an average one 160-seater 737-800 aircraft per month, two more 494-seater A380 and four 283-seater A330-300 aircraft this year.”
“This is an integral aspect of our Business Plan and our continued commitment to improve air connectivity within Malaysia as well as leverage on the Asia Pacific region where the demand outlook is strong, fuelled by a burgeoning middle class and increased global and intra-regional trade. We are confident that our improving fleet size, with the addition of new aircraft featuring state-of-the-art passenger amenities, will continue to drive revenue and loads, and our return to profitability,” he added.
Apart from the Kuala Lumpur-Paris return route that saw a weekly capacity increase of 1484 seats in each direction with the 494-seater A380 replacing the 282-seater B777-200 from 1 March 2013, the upward capacity changes focus on matching air traffic volume in the Asia Pacific that is expected to see strong growth in 2013 as cargo recovers.
Regional Network
From 31 March 2013, the Kuala Lumpur-Manila route weekly frequency will be increased from 25 to 28 B737-800 services with the additional flights operating on Monday, Friday and Sunday. With the introduction of the 3 weekly services, this route’s capacity is increased by 12% (480 seats) in each direction.
Effective the same day, the daily Boeing 737-800 return frequencies of the airline’s Kuala Lumpur-Yangon and Kuala Lumpur-Colombo routes will also be increased to ten weekly. The 3 new weekly services for Yangon will be operated on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, while the similar services for Colombo will be operated on Monday, Thursday and Saturday.
From 1 April 2013, a new daily B777-200 service will be introduced on the Kuala Lumpur-Dhaka route, making it double daily wide-body operations between Malaysia and Bangladesh, with capacity also increased 100% from that date.
The present daily B777-200 and twice daily B737-800 return flights for Kuala Lumpur-Denpasar (Bali) will also have a daily capacity increase by 20% when one of the daily B737-800 service is replaced by B777-200 service effective 01Apr 2013.
The 5 times weekly A330-300 daily service for Kuala Lumpur-Brisbane route will be increased to daily flights effective 17 June 2013, adding 566 seats in each direction, representing a 40% capacity increase.
Capacity on the Kuala Lumpur-Bandar Seri Begawan will be increased by 11% with the existing 4 weekly B737-400 services replaced by B737-800 flights effective 15 August 2013.
Domestic Network
On the Peninsular Malaysia services, the present 42 B737 weekly Kuala Lumpur-Langkawi services will be increased to 49 effective 15 June 2013. The Kuala Lumpur-Johor Bahru sector, currently served by 27 weekly B737 flights will be increased by a further 5 weekly B737-800 flights effective 15 July 2013.
The Kuala Lumpur-Kuching route will see the current 49 weekly B737 services gradually increase to 77 weekly services by 15 August 2013. This will be through the mounting of 19 weekly services effective 31 March 2013, 8 weekly services from 15 July 2013 and 1 weekly service from 15 August 2013.
Similarly the Kuala Lumpur-Kota Kinabalu route will also be improved from the current 68 weekly B737 services to 82 weekly services by 15 July 2013. The gradual increase will be through 6 additional weekly flights from 31 March 2013, 6 weekly flights from 15 April 2013, 1 weekly flight from 15 June 2013, and another from 15 July 2013.
Due to increased demand on the Kuala Lumpur-Miri route, 11 additional B737 frequencies will be introduced, with a daily service effective 15 April 2013, 3 weekly service effective 15 July 2013 and 1 weekly service effective 15 August 2013.
To cope with similar increased demand, the present 7 weekly B737 services for Kuala Lumpur-Tawau will be increased by another daily service from 15 June 2013. From the same day, the present 14 weekly Kuala Lumpur-Labuan B737 service will be increased by another 6 weekly B737 services to make it 20 weekly flights.
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