Tough 2Q2017 Won’t Stop Malaysia Airlines from Having a Good 2018

12th Sep 2017

Even though the period between 1^st April and 30^th June was tough for the airline, mainly due to increased competition and foreign exchange movements, Malaysia Airlines maintains that it is still on track to return to profit next year.

The carrier said in a statement:

For Malaysia Airlines, the market is diverging with consistent growth and improvement on international services, but a loss of market share domestically where fares are increasingly low.

MAS did not provide any figures, but said that its revenue for the 2Q2017 grew 8% compared to the same period in 2016. At the same time, load factor went down 1.6 percentage points year-on-year (YoY) to 77.8% and available seat kilometers (ASK) increased 1.8%. In addition, the loads increased 16.9 percentage points for the international network and average fare went down 4.5%.

The carrier stated that it will continue to focus on cutting costs from its domestic and international operations alike. Just in the first half of the year, the airline managed to save RM16 million ($3.8 million).

Furthermore, MAS is moving forward with its expansion into the Chinese market and has announced two new services from the Kuala Lumpur by the end of 2017. This will be flights from Kuala Lumpur to Chengdu and from KL to Chongqing. In addition, MAS will also change its Delhi services from Boeing 737 to Airbus A330 and add three more services each week to Seoul, for a total of 10 flights per week.

The carrier said:

Discussions are continuing with a range of lessors, other airlines and aircraft manufacturers to acquire good quality aircraft with lie-flat beds and high quality in-flight entertainment systems.

The airline also said that, while the fuel prices, weaker Malaysian currency, competition, yield and all the other factors will remain, the outlook is positive as forward bookings in 2017 so far are “far stronger” then they were in last year.

The airline added that it will remain “prudent in controlling capacity” and allocate aircrafts where it believes it can get the “best potential returns” on its investment.