Let's share a very sad history of the Malaysian aviation history:
On 15 January 2011, at 09:30, a Firefly's brand new B737-800 landed at Kota Kinabalu International Airport on their Borneo inaugural flight. On this day this low cost carrier owned by Malaysia Airlines began their 2 x daily services between Kuala lumpur and Kota Kinabalu. Within a few months, they increased their frequency to 6 x daily and added a 2 x daily Kuala Lumpur - Sandakan vv from 01 August 2011.
Firefly has been well received by the people of Sabah because of their competitive low fare and the superior services both in the air and on the ground.
It's a shock when Malaysia Airlines made a decision to scrap all Firefly's jet services to the Borneo states. The sudden decision in dropping such a bombshell was unbelievable , especially to the people of Sabah. The CEO of Malaysia Airlines confirmed that the pull-out was a result of the restructuring exercise to turn around the losses. However, many people and I believed that Malaysia Airlines was forced to remove Firefly from the jet services to make way for Air Asia after the share swap deal.
This billboard is already "history" in less than a year.
A friend of mine, a regular on Firefly told me that he took the last flight out from Sandakan to Kuala Lumpur last week. It was a full flight. The crew were friendly as usual but he noticed a young stewardess with a gloomy face. She could have joined Firefly less than a year and now have to face the misfortune of losing her job. The crew were almost in tears as they bid farewell to passengers after landing at KLIA.
Today, Air Asia is the only low cost carrier dominating the Malaysia sky. People with low budget have no choice but to fly Air Asia at the mercy of their fare structure which comes with many other charges. It is very strange that the Government did nothing to protect the people's interest despite the protest from majority of the people.
Two days ago, Malaysia Airlines announced that they would suspend eight loss-making routes early next 2012. They include the daily Kuala Lumpur-Surabaya, thrice-weekly Kuala Lumpur-Dubai, twice-weekly Kuala Lumpur-Karachi- Dubai, twice-weekly Kuala Lumpur-Dubai-Damman, daily Langkawi-Penang-Singapore, thrice-weekly Kuala Lumpur- Johannesburg, twice-weekly Kuala Lumpur-Cape Town -Buenos Aires and thrice-weekly Kuala Lumpur- Rome.
I doubt Malaysia Airlines can recover by merely cutting off their services. In my opinion, Firefly can help to generate profit by continuing to serve the highly lucrative low cost market.
There is a strong rumour in town that Malaysia Airlines will cease their operations in the Borneo states and MASwing, their subsidiary Borneo wing is to completely take over all the domestic routes in Sabah and Sarawak. If this happens, air travel in Borneo will return to the 70s era with no jet services.
May God help the staff of Malaysia Airlines and Firefly !
1 comment:
Very interesting story to me !
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