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| MAS A330-300 at Brisbane for MH134 (Executive Traveller) |
The Malaysian national carrier cites increased global economic challenges.
Malaysia Airlines has announced today that flights between Kuala Lumpur and Brisbane will be suspended from service effective 27 March 2023.
The decision comes after undertaking a thorough route rationalisation analysis as part of the Airline’s ongoing business review. Non-stop flights operating between Kuala Lumpur and the other existing four Australian destinations – Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide, will continue to operate as normal, providing up to 43 direct flights a week between Australia and Malaysia.
Customers travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Brisbane can leverage Malaysia Airlines codeshare and oneworld partner, Qantas to connect from Sydney and Melbourne to Brisbane (BNE).
Making the announcement, Group Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia Airlines Berhad, Captain Izham Ismail said, “After a thorough business review, we have made a difficult decision to discontinue our operations into Brisbane to ensure we operate and utilise our fleet at an optimum level, as well as maximising revenue on every route we fly to, while we face strong headwinds from the continued increase in fuel costs, foreign exchange, and interest rates.”
Captain Ismail noted that, “our forward booking to other Australian cities is very encouraging with strong demand up to and beyond the first quarter of 2023, and significantly ahead of the same period in 2019. We remain focused on ramping up our network to achieve full recovery by 2024. To date, we have deployed capacities at 76% year-to-date and anticipate ending the year with 82% capacity of pre-pandemic levels network-wide. Australia has rebounded quickly and excluding the suspension of Brisbane, Malaysia Airlines’ Australia network will be at 98% capacity of pre-pandemic levels by March 2023.”
He added, “This year we have added new destinations from Kuala Lumpur to Doha, Haneda and Yogjakarta as well as from Kota Kinabalu to Singapore and will continue to explore markets that spur economic growth for the country, whilst helping business and trade. We remain steadfast in our long-term goals of driving growth in every aspect of our business for market relevance.”
Malaysia Airlines continues to maintain stable connectivity between Malaysia and Australia and to quickly rebuild traffic between the two countries. The last flight on this route will depart Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur on 26 March 2023 via MH134.
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