Load in Y for KUL - LHR - KUL in March
 

Hi everyone,
I Booked an ultra low promotion fare some months ago (in Y sadly), traveling on 8 Mar to 15 Mar.
Has anyone flown on MH 004 & MH 001 this week or maybe flying next week?
As mentioned upthread, both my flights weren't on the cancelled dates so I'm wondering if MH rebooked all affected pax amongst our flights; which could mean a very full & unpleasant journey.
Any latest updates will be much appreciated!
Thanks In advance!

Just flew back from London on MH ..delay leaving Heathrow due to weather, de-icing and then the usual wait to cross the runway to the other runway for departure. We spent about an hour on the ground before take off but made back a fair amount I guess on the way back as we were only 30 minutes late which was understandable.

BTW, the weather in London was awful so I could understand if there were delays in arrivals in KL...departure from KL was on time. No problems there.

Today's KUL-LHR day flight was showing 3 hour departure delay. Lots of unhappy people who showed up at 0730 only to be waiting around until 1200.

There have been a *lot* of delays to LHR-KUL-LHR flights in the last couple of weeks. Make sure your details in your booking are accurate as MH have been good at contacting affected people by phone. My mate even got a call in Langkawi to advise him of a 1 hour delay from KUL-LHR (which was largely made up).

These flights are exceptionally busy in both cabins due to the nature of the promotions they have been running.

I was on MH3, and while we landed on time, the crew were discussing that MH4 was going to be heavily delayed.

When I departed from KUL to SIN, on my connecting flight, I could see MH4 being pulled onto stand, with the MH3 aircraft parked at a remote stand about 30 metres away.

In terms of numbers, F was 3/8, and J was 44/66 - 2 people no showed.

M

MH4 delayed today around an hour.

F6 J64 356Y - very busy today, including a totally full J cabin. I'm hoping for an OpUp, but unlikely that there are no MH Platinum members...who would trump my OWE.

M

MH 004 delays
 

Indeed, it departed KUL 3.5 hours late on Feb 28, which is quite odd since MH003 arrived on time. Unless they weren't using that frame for MH004.

Anyways good news today - MH 004 departed on time; the best performance in the past 7 days! ^

Updated my contact details
 

Thanks for the tip. Made sure to check & update my mobile no. in case of any delays. But depending on when they call or send an sms re: any delays, it won't make much of a difference since we'd have to be on our way to the airport at around 6am.

I assume when you said "busy in both cabins" you are referring to J & Y (since it's a 3 class aircraft, but F won't be discounted, I think).

I did my OLCI at 9am this morning, & most seats at the rear of the aircraft were wide open. Of course, it'll fill up in the next 40 something hours. As to what extent, I wouldn't know until the day of.

Will post an update after the flight.

Trip update
 

Hopefully, you've not taken your trip yet & this update is useful to you.

I was also concerned about flight cancellations & pax being moved to my flights (MH 004 @ Mar 8 & MH 001 @ Mar 15) - although I can't be sure that this happened, the flights were quite full especially on the outbound.

With the spate of constant discount Y fares, I don't think it's due to low bookings but I could be mistaken.

I traveled in Economy & was seated in the Upper Deck, which not surprisingly, was the choice of many other passengers so it was about 90%-95% full on both sectors).

Mar 8 - Y 375/420 (Seat 32C)
Mar 15 - Y 348/420 (Seat 32G)

On the inbound, the flight stewardess actually went down to the lower deck to look for a better seat for me, and she offered to move me to Row 74 since the rear of the aircraft was pretty empty. I politely declined as I was already settled in my seat.

Just a few notes regarding on board service & aircraft cabin -

Out of 4 cabin crew (2 in the UD for each sector), only 1 was not up to standard - the rest were excellent; warm, friendly & helpful and really made the long flight very comfortable.

On each of the 2 sectors, 1 toilet was not working so the UD had 2 serviceable toilets which added to the wait time before & after meals, and also just before landing. Toilets were also not in the best condition, and definitely looked used & abused.

Seats were worn, and seat cushions were coming apart at the seams.

The IFE was not working at my seat on the outbound (TV monitor/remote control issue), & on the inbound my neighbor's IFE was not working (32K - broken TV monitor). Fortunately, the cabin crew was aware of this issue and they moved him to another seat.

My guess would be that it didn't break on the flight prior to mine, so MAS should really buck up and get all these issues fixed immediately.

Hopefully these won't be an issue when others take their flights. Please post an update if you've recently traveled to LHR, it'll be interesting to find out when the toilet & IFE issues get fixed.

Its happening...
 

https://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/...statement.html

I guess that's going to be 600 euros per passenger departing the UK ... now that would end up a pretty penny for MAB.

It seems that MH is just using 4 A380s to service the double daily LHR and the seasonal "daily" Umrah charters to MED.

The schedules become chaotic when one aircraft goes tech and another has a medical diversion.

Frames -MNE and -MNF do not seem to have been flying for quite a while and are constant occupants of the hangar at KUL. I wonder if they were cannibalised for spares to conserve cash given that MH only needs 4 aircraft.

One of them (don't know which one) is parked near the hanger next to a white tailed 777 with it's (the A380) engines taken out. Looks very sad.

Issue with Rolls Royce engines? Don't they have two extra A380 frames still unused? Couldn't they have just replaced the engines those first and rotated them into service as needed?

Our MH3 from LHR-KUL last week (March 20th) was delayed 10 hours due to "the late arrival of the inbound aircraft". I was verbally informed by London based staff that the late arrival was due to a technical issue with an aircraft in KUL.

Upon arrival in KL we'd missed our connection to DPS and were overnighted by MH at the main Sama Sama hotel. Our arrival delay into DPS was circa 22 hours (on one PNR).

I've already emailed MH customer services with our EU261 claim and immediately received an auto-response with a customer service reference number and a loosely worded paragraph about 'getting back to you soon'.

Does anybody have any experience with MH EU261 claim handling?

Hoping not to have a similar experience inbound where EU261 will not apply!

MH 002 unbelievable reason for a delay
 

1.5 hour delay leaving KUL on the 1st April due to not having any water onboard. The captain had to call for a water truck, then for another as the first water truck could only fill the aircraft's tanks to 80%. In addition, at least half a dozen J seats were frozen and unable to recline, including mine. So a team of technicians had to board the flight to fix them.

The crew didn't have the initiative to switch on the entertainment system nor distribute snacks whilst all this was happening. In fact this crew was a really talkative bunch who spent the entire flight chatting with each other. Big contrast with the crews on my last 2 trips on the KUL-LHR route over the last 14 months.

The entertainment selection is clearly a weak spot - I flew with them in February, and the selection s not noticeably changed 2 months later.

Looks like MH is still being run by a bunch of bunglers. They need to go bankrupt again.