5 Star MAS Service at Budget Prices

Extracts from Malaysiakini

Five-star airline with budget carrier fares
Oct 29, 07 7:29am :

Malaysia Airlines plans to transform itself into a five-star airline with budget carrier fares, under a five-year business transformation plan to be launched in 2008, a report said Monday.

The beleaguered flag carrier last year launched a turnaround plan aimed at restoring it to profitability after a series of losses.

Its managing director, Idris Jala, said the airline now wanted to shift gears again, with a five-year transformation plan aimed at making it more nimble to face heightened competition.

"We were talking a lot about business turnaround plan before. Now we plan to transform from what we are today into a five-star airline at low-cost carrier cost," he told the state news agency Bernama.


DeanKuok Says:

5 Star Service at Budget Prices

The last few days, I was so disappointed by the ‘feel tall’ and “don’t feel tall” argument about our cosmonaut. Say what you like but at this point of time, this is simply just another “Malaysia Boleh” waste of RM90 million public funded space tour by a lucky Malaysian first space tourist. Now…hold your horses! I am proud of Sheikh Mustaphar as a Malaysian capable of travelling to space but the Government of Malaysia packaging the space odyssey as a scientific research appalls me. Now, that is an unacceptable load of rubbish! I shall wait for the government of Malaysia and those that disagree with me another 20 years to prove me wrong and I sincerely hope I am wrong.

Still on the air space issue, DIJ announced that Malaysia Airlines plans to transform itself into a five-star airline with budget carrier fares. Bravo… MAS footing is definitely firmly on the ground instead of floating in Space! Definitely this new proposed strategy make excellent good economic sense.

Let us all pause for a moment and look at MAS current position. On their left are the fast growing regional budget airlines and on their right, the much established exclusive 5 star Singapore Airlines. Budget airlines offer cheaper prices at the expense of comfort while exclusive airlines offer slightly better comfort at hefty prices. I always wonder why can’t we have both? Competitively priced and comfortable air travel. Airlines experts will declare this as impossible but Stelios (easyjet) have always proved his critic wrong by seeking non-airlines financial experts because they are the only ones who can tell him how easyjet can fly from London to Paris at the price of a steak and still make profits. The basic principal is that airplanes belong up in the sky carrying the maximum load and not left idling on the tarmac. The secret is not just saving cost by not assigning seats. How much can the airline really save by not assigning seats, when one can now select the seat via the Internet? The bottom line is still “effective lower per passenger unit cost” by maximising passenger load and the time the plane remain in the sky (“airtime”) where they ought to be.

If I am to assume this as MAS new strategy, then we are looking at comfortable mass transit at very competitive prices. Excellent strategy assuming that MAS is able to control the unit cost effectively. This strategy is certainly an effective way to capture a larger share of the international travellers market. We should not be protecting the 25 million passengers but instead targeting 50 million passengers. This will mean truly able transforming KLIA a competitive regional hub and boasting the other related industries such as higher returns for KLIA, airline support industries, tourism and regional business centre. I will certainly look forward to MAS new strategy.