Malaysia Airlines Becomes Code-Share Partner with Emirates

3rd Dec 2015

Malaysia Airlines Bhd and Emirates have signed a code-share agreement. This means the Malaysian-based carrier will now be able to offer twice the amount of destinations it currently can to its guests, but also to abandon some less profitable and loss-making routes into Europe.

Now that it’s allied with Emirates, MAS will cancel its daily services into Amsterdam, Holland and Paris, France. This means the only direct European destination it will serve from now on will be the one to London, United Kingdom. The change will be effective by the end of January next year.

According to Malaysia Airline’s chief executive Christoph Mueller, MAS has also decided to ax 10 out of a total of 29 current code-share agreements.

Mueller said:

We’re trying to reduce our partnership arrangements to those that make sense. We will now be more selective than in the past.

Signing a deal with Emirates means that MAS will now have access to no less than 38 European cities. This includes cities such as Barcelona and Rome. Additionally, the Malaysian carrier will expand its offer into U.S. and Canada, Africa and the Middle East.

According to Mr. Mueller, the plan is to move away from the Europe-Australia market, which is very condensed at the moment, and focus more on emerging Asian economies.

By cutting some European and Australian routes, such as Frankfurt, Istanbul and Brisbane, the loss-making airline has managed to reduce its capacity by 27 per cent.

Malaysia Airlines Berhad was hit really hard last year when it lost two planes in tragic accidents. In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared in the Southern Indian Ocean with 239 on board (227 passengers and 12 crew members). In July 2014, MAS lost another plane, when flight MAS17 was shut down during the conflict in Ukraine. No one survived out of 298 on board, including 283 passengers and 15 crew members.