Originally Posted by
ermen
Yes but that was a 738. how does it affect a330 operations?
The problem starts with their expansion into China and increasing frequency to key destinations and revenue generating destinations.
MH is now utilizing most of their aircraft and have very few options as far as replacements go.
They now have added directly flights to China out of Langkawi and Kota Kinabalu, maintain a once a week Kota Kinabalu to Perth flight on a 737-800 and had a few issues over the past 8 weeks with landing in Saudi Arabia that forced some changes to the type of aircraft being used there.
They are juggling and having to problem solve at the moment because they simply do not have the spare aircraft available to compensate when 1 or more aircraft go down for technical reasons.
The sibu incident aside, they have had 2 737's with tyre bursting problems at KLIA this month that caused a domino effect, not to mention bad weather problems in East Malaysia as well with flights being diverted or cancelled.
There is no doubt they can use a couple more spare 737's and A330's but they seem to be dilly dallying about this and it's something they really should have sorted out 2-3 months ago by leasing them.
There are a lot of aircraft on the market at the moment available for lease or purchasing but MH have been a bit picky with committing to leasing and looking for cheap deals which, in the long run, has not been a prudent measure.
They also have 3 A380's sitting idle on the tarmac which could be roped in to do some of the Aussie or HK flights if need be but, I guess their mind is made up about them already and don`t want to use them for emergency purposes like they have now..
Their 737's and A330's are being worked to the max at this moment in time.