Malaysia Airlines has expressed its keen interest to expand operations in India, as the airline ‘eyes’ India as a crucial market for growth. Malaysia Airlines is a part of Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG).
Currently Malaysia Airlines operated non-stop flights to nine destinations in India namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Amritsar, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi. It also services Ahmedabad and Trivandrum with four weekly flights each.
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Going ahead, the airline plans to expand its operations in Trivandrum and Ahmedabad. Apart from expanding commercial flights to existing destinations, the airline is also exploring new destinations within the country. The airline hopes that the proposed expansion plan should materialise by 2025.
Emphasising the importance of the Indian market, MAG, managing director Izham Ismail attributed the airline’s enthusiasm to India’s robust economic movement.
Currently, Malaysia Airlines operates 71 weekly flights to India. The flights to Amritsar were increased from four per week to daily in August. Malaysia Airlines also has a codeshare partnership with IndiGo and interline arrangement with Air India and Vistara. The bilateral rights between the two countries are mainly used for metro routes, based on the number of seats.
Hence Malaysia Airlines has an option of increasing its flight frequencies or going in for new routes in Tier II and Tier III cities as there is no bilateral binding for these cities.
Meanwhile the current geopolitical tensions in the world leading to supply chain constraints further leading to late aircraft deliveries and lack of spares and parts for repair had led MAG to cut capacity till December 2024.