Malaysia Airlines is keen to expand its operations to India, which is a “very important market”, a top airline official said. The airline, which currently flies to nine Indian cities, is eyeing new destinations and is looking to increase frequencies to Trivandrum and Ahmedabad. Malaysia Airlines is part of the Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) and operates daily flights to Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Amritsar, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi. It also has four weekly services from Ahmedabad and Trivandrum.
“We remain excited about the Indian market. It is driven by a robust economic movement,” MAG’s Group Managing Director Datuk Captain Izham Ismail told PTI in an interview.
“We are aiming to expand more into India… that won’t happen until next year… India is a very important market,” he said, adding that the country will look at expanding once it gets more aircraft.
Currently, Malaysia Airlines operates 71 weekly flights to India. Flights to Amritsar were increased from four per week to daily in August. The airline has a codeshare partnership with IndiGo and interline agreements with Air India and Vistara. In the recent interview in Kuala Lumpur, Ismail said, “We have the appetite and desire to increase frequencies to Trivandrum, Ahmedabad and a few new destinations that we are eyeing.”
The bilateral flying rights between India and Malaysia, based on the number of seats that airlines from either side can operate, are mostly used for metro routes in India. Malaysia Airlines can thus offer more services to non-metro cities in the country as there are no restrictions due to bilateral flying rights.
Meanwhile, the carrier has downsized its network until December due to operational issues due to various factors including supply chain constraints and manpower challenges. “We have problems with the reliability of the timetable. We hope to be able to do this in the past… in 2025 we will emerge stronger and we will continue to focus on India,” Ismail said.
According to him, IndiGo is a very ideal partner for the airline. They have a codeshare partnership. Codesharing allows an airline to book its passengers with its partner airlines and offer seamless travel to destinations where it is not present. An interline agreement refers to a pact to issue and accept tickets for flights operated by the partner airline. When selling an interline ticket, the operating airlines’ own flight numbers are used.
MAG consists of three businesses: airlines, loyalty and travel solutions and aviation services. The airline segment consists of Malaysia Airlines, regional airlines – Firefly and MASwings – and AMAL, which offers Hajj and Umrah pilgrimage services. India is one of the fastest civil aviation markets in the world.
