MH International Business - absolute rubbish!
 

Flew SUB-KUL in J on Sunday:

• No IFE - NADA.
• Seats straight out of the 1970s - on a 737-8....
• No in-seat power. Not even a USB charger!
• Seat wobbled about 5 degrees recline when in the "upright" position.
• 10:00 departure local time. "Lunch" served about 20 minutes after takeoff - FA seemed desperate to get service out of the way. Pretty poor chicken curry dish with fruit and yoghurt (breakfast or lunch???).
• No alcohol. What is this - Royal Brunei???

Honestly, a complete disgrace. Worst MH flight I've ever had - Y service KUL-KCH is better.

I believe this should be in the MH Enrich section instead over here

It is unfortunately that you got onto those aircraft that was not originally ordered by MH. These aircraft was supported to deliver to Delta and Hong Kong Airline but they never take these unit after fully assembled, so it end up in MH. Supposedly all these aircraft will be return to leasor between 2019 to 2020 and replaced by 737 max. But I believe now they had to hold it longer...

For meal, the local time at destination is 11am during the departure, that's the reason they serve lunch. There has been well long known that MH cut alcohol for any route less than 3 hours. Part of the reason is that there is a strong complaint among muslim cabin crew on alcohol serving. Don't under estimate the radical group....

Sadly I think you should have set your expectations beforehand - MH has not served alcohol on flights less than three hours for many years now. Personally I like a glass of champagne or two and wine with my meal, so I tend to avoid MH short-haul, and for long-haul the connecting flight to KUL is pretty dreary (and why on earth can their booking system not sell a Suites connection out of anywhere but KUL??)

Most airlines serve lunch post-10am (especially when it is 11am at destination) though, so would see this a perfectly normal (and for me, preferable).

Other than “no alcohol” you basically described my last VA experience 😉

as per dici statement about radical group. Yes, these bunch can be scary when they are pushing for certain thing (eg. No alcohol onboard). They are the same bunch of people who complain about the uniform the crew (and Malindo and Air Asia) that were deemed too sexy and wanted a change on that which fortunately does not happen... yet.

Yeah, I looked for that forum but couldn't see it.

Must have been blind. Or drunk. Probably the latter...

I get why there was lunch, but it was on my tray almost before the seatbelt sign went off. That's bizarre.

I don't buy the excuse for no booze - what, the cabin staff are less inclined to complain about handling alcohol if the flight is longer than 3 hours? Cool story, MH!

Oh, lunch was normal and expected - but the meal couldn't make up its mind - was it breakfast (yoghurt and fruit) or lunch (chicken curry with no veg - just protein and rice)?

And served so fast that I nearly experienced blueshift.

I don't want to bring up the blame on religion, so.... there has been some poster here or other place mentioned about this was part of the reason. But don't underestimate the religion says

Yes MH product short haul is just very average at best. Therefore I only book it with good discounts, which are indeed frequently given. You shouldn't pay close to CX, SQ fares on MH.

No booze is entirely due to 1 major problem that MH has and that one problem leads to poor decision making and excuses.
The excuse is: cost saving
The problem is: Nobody in MH management has ever been a customer of the airline in any meaningful capacity. Zero frequent flyers. Zero experience. Therefore zero first-hand knowledge, which leads to poor outcomes.

Fundamentally they're unqualified to run an airline.

You're seeing the results of that through below average food, no booze (despite good research showing alcohol is linked to premium fare paying pax), product downgrades, the only airline in the world not to let top-tier flyers select their seat at no cost in econ, a worsening loyalty proposition, an airline which is 'on sale' 24/7 as they think price is the way towards recovery and ultimately - an airline that can't appear to turn a profit, entirely due to the continuous small mistake after small mistake after small poor decision after small poor descision. The seemingly unimportant decisions compounded over time equals an airline that can't and won't recover.

At this point, the airline is nothing more than a flying billboard for the country of Malaysia. Even then, it's debatable if that's helping the country.

I think d00t sums up the situation of the MH of the past five to seven years quite nicely..!

Maybe they were aiming at providing brunch? :D
On a more serious note, the meal does sound like a very confused chicken there..!

your post should at the very least be headed "short haul business class" as I have flown long haul and it has been very good and apart from the lack of alcohol my experience of a couple of short haul domestic flights was that MAS was far far better than most of the European short haul business classes

Chicken curry and rice... Are you sure that wasn't nasi lemak, which is the national dish of Malaysia, and traditionally eaten for breakfast in parts of Malaysia and Indonesia?

I'm not entirely sure what you were expecting, but given the competition between SUB and KUL is a bunch of low cost carriers, it sounded fine to me...

Oh it was a good discount - $1 less than economy!

When I first read the thread, I thought OP meant a long haul International J class.

For a short haul flight , it is fine. Other than the alcohol issue, you get worse flying on BA inter europe and the seats are the same as in economy. At least on MH, you get a separate cabin and Business Class seats. For short haul economy, MH excels above BA where the latter you even have to pay for tea and other refreshments. What airline can serve you a choice of hot meals and separate coffee and tea offerings (in econmy) on an hour flight between KUL and HKT?