Malaysia Airlines serving only one middle east station

[LUNN]

They are now left with Jeddah only and dropped Riyadh unnoticed, besides Beirut in early 2011 also unannounced, Dammam and Dubai went early this year, Cairo in 2009 or so.

They do have code shares to some places there and have cargo flights by MASkargo to Sharjah.

[AA 1818]

Maybe they can rely on RJ (as an alliance partner) for connections to the Gulf/Middle East?

It's quite odd, though, that they can't make those routes work. There is obviously such a high demand. Is EK or other Gulf Carriers really stripping that market that much?

[CathayPacific]

MH is in an interesting position. It's hub, KUL, is a major city, but not a primary business destination in the region, being outranked by HKG and SIN (which is less than 1 hr away); it's not a primary vacation destination in the region as well, being outranked by BKK. It has excellent service and reputation, but that is outranked by CX and SQ. It offers competitive prices generally, but on domestic and regional front for O&D traffic, the price is outranked by AirAsia, and for Australia-Europe connection traffic, the price is outranked by EK and QR alike. So at the end, it's number 2 or 3 in everything. That's not a good position to be in, because it means that you are not the first choice of any of your market segments.

[tsv]

Originally Posted by CathayPacific

MH is in an interesting position. It's hub, KUL, is a major city, but not a primary business destination in the region, being outranked by HKG and SIN (which is less than 1 hr away); it's not a primary vacation destination in the region as well, being outranked by BKK. It has excellent service and reputation, but that is outranked by CX and SQ. It offers competitive prices generally, but on domestic and regional front for O&D traffic, the price is outranked by AirAsia, and for Australia-Europe connection traffic, the price is outranked by EK and QR alike. So at the end, it's number 2 or 3 in everything. That's not a good position to be in, because it means that you are not the first choice of any of your market segments.

Spot on, they're a Market follower not a Market leader.

I'm interested in how their One World entry will play out. Apparently QF is their sponsor but the talks on a formal alliance with QF (I imagine it was to be a joint services agreement or something similar) have stalled.

If any 2 Airlines in Oceania need to develop some allies it is QF and MH. Both are under serious attack from the 3 Big ME carriers plus SQ and CX. The Chinese are slowly but surely joining the frenzy making the market from Australia to Asia and Europe one of the most competitive in the World. QF and MH could give each other a heap of feed in this market and they could surely reduce costs by Code Sharing and revenue sharing but for some reason they can't/couldn't get the deal done. I find this a bit strange and if I held shares in QF (or MH) I'd be demanding an explanation.

[CathayPacific]

Originally Posted by tsv

I'd be demanding an explanation.

MH's mgmt does not know what they want. They are flip flopping. One year, they expand like crazy, the next year, they shuts down stations. One year, they order the 737, the next year, they look at the A320. They are influenced by the government which wants to leapfrog and challenge SIN as well, but both the airline and the government don't know how to do it, so it just keeps trying things back and forth.

QF does not seem a co-operative type to me. And its primary co-operation target of the Australia-Europe market is, and has always been, BA. It is not surprising that after the conclusion of the JV agreement with BA, QF cools down on its enthusiasm with MH. MH is still a good partner, but not as important any more.

[tsv]

Originally Posted by CathayPacific

MH's mgmt does not know what they want. They are flip flopping. One year, they expand like crazy, the next year, they shuts down stations. One year, they order the 737, the next year, they look at the A320. They are influenced by the government which wants to leapfrog and challenge SIN as well, but both the airline and the government don't know how to do it, so it just keeps trying things back and forth.

QF does not seem a co-operative type to me. And its primary co-operation target of the Australia-Europe market is, and has always been, BA. It is not surprising that after the conclusion of the JV agreement with BA, QF cools down on its enthusiasm with MH. MH is still a good partner, but not as important any more.

I completely disagree about MH not being "as important any more". To the contrary I believe BA is not very important to QF in the context of the market between Australia and European destinations, other than LHR. MH may have plenty of Management issues (most Airlines do from time to time, BA was itself in a real mess a few years ago) but Geographically MH are infinitely better located than either BA or QF to serve the Australian-European market. And they are also better situated serve the Australian-Sub Continent and Australia-Middle East Markets.

The problem with the BA/QF JV is it will only ever allow them one stop flights to one European destination - LHR. And QF still fly their own metal there anyway so even this destination is covered without BA.

Customers are increasingly less interested in flying to the far corner of Europe, transiting through the shambolic mess that will always be LHR, then back tracking to mainland Europe. They don't even want to transit through LHR when they are flying to Northern England, Scotland or Ireland.

So BA is simply the wrong partner if you want to compete in the Australian - European market (other than to/from LHR itself). I don't believe the public are very excited about the idea of flying with BA anyway, they are an old fashioned, boring Airline that stands for nothing much other than reliably losing your Baggage. Their Business product is (reportedly) good but their Y class offering decidedly sucks.

People would much rather relate how they flew with one of the sexier new ME Airlines, went shopping mad in Dubai/Abu Dhabi/Doha on the way over and almost went to Jail for kissing on a Pubic Beach/having a Beer.

It's hard to quickly check where MH fly their own metal to because their route map shows a heap of destinations that are obviously served by code share but suffice to say they can offer one stop flights from Australia to a significant number of European and Asian destinations that Qantas can't.

You may be right that QF are not very cooperative, I've never worked for them so I wouldn't know. But if they want their International Division to survive they are going to have to learn to co-operate with somebody. And the somebody will have to be in Asia or the Middle East not in the old Motherland.

[LUNN]

OK Riyadh was never started, by the way MH launching Nepal service from 1 September with 738.