MAB to Boost Revenue Using A380s on Charter Flights

8th Jun 2016

During the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on charter services with major tour operators in the country, Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) Chief Commercial Officer Paul Simmons said “there is strong demand” to add more charter flights between China and Malaysia.

The carrier will use its existing fleet of six Airbus A380 aircraft for these charter flights, hoping this will help it increase revenue. This differs from previous rumors that MAB is planning to sell or lease these planes to other airlines.

According to the outgoing Chief Executive Officer Christoph Mueller, the A380s will remain with Malaysia Airlines until mid-2018, when the carrier will dispose of them.

MAB CCO also said the airline has 53 charter flights scheduled for the period between November this year and July next year and is offering 24,150 seats on different routes, including to Medina and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

Simmons said:

The great thing about using an A380 for chartered business is that our cost per seat is very effective and provides 500 seats that will be fully taken up.

A representative of Andalusia Travel & Tours, one of the tour operators that signed the Memorandum with Malaysia Airlines, said that the availability of Airbus A380s for charter “was crucial considering the growing number of Umrah religious pilgrims year-on-year”.

Simmons also said the addition of new charter services using A380s would “see MAB off to a good start” when it comes to improving the carrier’s business prospects.

However, he also added:

We have not projected to make a profit until 2018 but… the charter business should help improve our company’s financial performance.

Weather Delays MH370 Search off the West Australia Coast

Meanwhile, the search for the missing MAB flight MH370 will take longer than predicted due to bad weather.

On Wednesday, Australia’s Joint Agency coordinator Centre issued a statement about this, saying:

Winter weather conditions continue to bring rough seas and strong winds ot the search area, severely impacting search operations.

Weather conditions are forecast to be marginal over the coming week and search operations may again be disrupted.

The search has covered 105,000 square kilometers of sea floor thus far. The initial plan was to search 120,000 sq. km by midyear, but the search will now likely be finished in August.

 Flight MH370 disappeared on 8th March, 2014 over Indian Ocean, with 239 people on board.

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