MAS SAYS 2QE JUN 2010 FORWARD BOOKINGS STRONG

MALAYSIA AIRLINES said late Mar 2010 that the Airline will reinstate most of the capacity it took out during the economic downturn in the coming days to months as demand for air travel picks up except for its American route.

To reinstate capacity, the Airline will add daily flights from Kuala Lumpur to Auckland and Perth from 4 flights to 5 flights and 9 flights to 10 flights per week respectively before end of Mar 2010. For Paris, the plan is to add two weekly flights from 5 flights to 7 flights, and recently it added two weekly flights to Brisbane.

' .... With this and some more, we would have added back more than half the capacity that we took out during the crisis ....' said BERNARD FRANCIS.

MAS was one of the earliest carriers to cut capacity during the crisis by nearly 13% in 2009. It has begun adding some capacity back to the system since Sep 2009 and even with the additional there will be a shortfall since its North America routes remains unchanged until passenger traffic patterns change.

Airlines globally are adding back capacity they cut during the crisis as growth in air passenger is encouraging. The International Air Transport Association said passenger demand was expected to grow by 5.6% in 2010 versus its earlier forecast of 4.5% on the back of the turnaround in the global economy.

The latest data released by the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines showed that airlines in the Asia Pacific region collectively transported 14.2m international passengers in Feb 2010, an increase of 16.9% compared to the same month in 2009.

2QE JUN 2010 FORWARD BOOKINGS STRONG
The Airline said that its forward bookings for 2QE Jun 2010 is showing a strong growth trend with bookings hitting 70% despite 2QE Jun being traditionally a slower quarter. ' .... Our forward bookings are definitely doing better than 2009. The second quarter is seasonally the weakest and we carried about 62% load last year ....' said MAS Senior GM, BERNARD FRANCIS to STARBIZ in an interview published on Mar 26, 2010.

FURTHER PICK-UP TO BE EXPECTED IN FORWARD QUARTERS
Traffic picks up in the third quarter and exceptional growth is experienced by most airlines in quarter four. BERNARD said it would be good if the Airline could end the year with loads of 70% to 75%.

BERNARD said that there was a lot of growth in the Asia-Pacific region, Asean, Europe and Australia but a bit slower in the United States.

NEW AIRCRAFT DELIVERIES
By the last quarter of 2010, the Airline will take delivery of three new aircraft and for that it is reviewing its network to add more frequency and routes. It has eyes on the Indian sub continent, Middle East and Asean.

' .... We run labs to determine profit viability of each route that we intend to mount and we will make the announcements in mid-year ....' he said.

BERNARD said MAS is poised to take advantage of the growth as it has in place a network that can support growth and its air fares were attractive.

INBOUND/OUTBOUND TRAFFIC
The Airline will also want to focus on selling Malaysia as a destination in 2010 for in-bound travel. It wants to bring in 5.5m in-bound traffic passengers that could potentially spend RM12.7 bil in tourism money. Bringing in in-bound travellers is done in cooperation with Tourism Malaysia and the Airline offers different packages to lure travellers here.

' .... We are always focused on selling outbound and since 2009 was a bad year for the aviation industry, we thought why not look at Malaysia. We want people to talk about Malaysia as a destination of choice like the way they talk about Bali and Phuket ....' he said.

In 2009, MAS flew in 4.5m inbound passengers, helping the country earn RM11 bil from tourism. The figure is based on assumption that each tourist spends RM2,300 during their stay in Malaysia. Cumulatively over a decade the Airline has helped enriched the nation with over RM2 tril in tourism earnings, BERNARD said.