Originally Posted by
DanV
Indeed. QF and AN tried SYD-KUL back in the 90s, even with MH feed for AN and vice-versa for MH (as AN/MH were JV partners on the KUL route back then) they still couldn't make it work. The Asian financial crisis in the late 90s was a convenient, but necessary excuse for QF and AN to pull out entirely, leaving the non-stop market entirely to MH.
Yes, I well recall flying QF on the route back in 1997 or 1998. As I remember it there were direct flights between SYD & KUL daily, but the aircraft then flew a KUL-SIN return leg - no doubt for some operational reason as it was mostly empty whenever I used it. SYD-KUL was a daytime flight which I prefer. As I recall there were also BA flights to Australia that transited KUL, and EK has given up on its (I think) KUL-somewhere in OZ flight. Basically Kuala Lumpur is boring as a destination and for that reason often has cheap airfares - I found the other day that TG's cheapest one-way J class flight is KUL-BKK