Malaysia Airlines is all set to boost its connectivity to India by increasing the frequency of its flights to Ahmedabad and Thiruvananthapuram apart from adding more flights to non-metro (Tier-II and Tier-III cities).

Malaysia Airlines currently has direct flights connecting nine destinations in India to Kuala Lumpur with 71 weekly flights.

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Currently, Malaysia’s national carrier operates daily flights to Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Amritsar, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi with four weekly services from Ahmedabad and Trivandrum.

Malaysia Airlines expanded its Amritsar route to four-weekly from August 2024.

The airline will choose the non-metro destinations based on no restriction zones due to bilateral flying rights.

The bilateral flying rights between India and Malaysia is mostly utilised for metro routes in India, based on the number of seats airlines from either side can operate. Hence, the airline is opting to expand on the non-Metro routes where there are no restrictions due to bilateral flying rights.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Airlines eyes India as one of the lucrative markets and is eyeing a codeshare pact with one of the airlines in India, earlier this year. The airline is looking at both a full-service as well as a low-cost carrier for its codeshare pact.

Apart from the above, Malaysia is also seeking an increase in bilateral flying rights for its airlines – Air Asia, Malaysia Airlines and Malindo Air. The flying rights were last raised in 2012.

Malaysian Airlines Group had temporarily reduced its network till December 2023 citing operational difficulties.

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