Have you flown Malaysia Airlines? I now have four reasons to try them.
- I have never flown them even though they connect Asia to almost every major Australian airport. Hope I can fix this soon.
- They are rated a five star airline by Skytrax and I am eager to work through all of the five star carriers.
- They are on track to join Oneworld in the last quarter of the year which means I can now start earning Qantas points and Status Credits when flying Malaysian
- They are the latest airline to fly the A380, one of my favourite aircraft.
The Malaysia Airlines version of the 380 has 494 seats across three classes. Check out the Malaysian Air seat map here.
First Class is located downstairs at the front of the plane has eight seats with an 89″ pitch and 40″ width.
These are the widest First class seats in the sky. They are arranged 1/2/1. There are three first class toilets so queueing won’t happen often!
Business Class: Upstairs there are 48 Business seats arranged 2/2/. Seat pitch: 74 inches – seats turn into a full flat bed. Each seat has a 17-inch video screen. There appear to be only two lavatories for this cabin.
Controversially Malaysia Airlines has made Business and First Class child free. I have not seen much reaction to this announcement generally. The test will come when a high profile business traveller is denied access with their tribe.
There are 350 Economy seats downstairs with a 32″ pitch and 18″ width arranged 3/4/3. On the upper deck, there are 70 arranged 2/4/2 Each seat has its own 10.9″ TV. There are eight lavatories downstairs and two upstairs.
The carrier is operating the 380 three times weekly on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday non stop from Kuala Lumpur to London as MH 002. The big bird, departs at 1140pm arriving 550am arrival (ugh). The return MH 003 leaves London Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 12pm and arrives Kuala Lumpur the next day at 725pm. Malaysian is saying they will go daily, from 13th August. KL- Sydney will follow from 25 September, 2012 as flights MH123/122 replacing the Boeing 747-400 aircraft currently serving the route.
The up to date list of the eight airlines who now possess 77 of the Superjumbo 380s. The number in brackets indicates how many 380s the carrier has. The asterix (*) means I have flown this airline’s A380.
- Air France (8)*
- China Southern (3)
- Emirates (22)*
- Korean (5) *
- Lufthansa (10)*
- Malaysian (1)
- Qantas (12) *
- Singapore (17)*
- Thai will start flying their A380 in October with six will be in service by the end of next year. Routes have not been finalised. Their A380 will have 507 seats in three-classes: 12 seats in Royal First Class, 60 seats in Royal Silk Class and 435 seats in Economy.
Related Posts
Tuesday Trip Report: Korean Airlines A380
I wish they would have a Asia DO so we could fly some of these Asian airlines like ANA, JAL, Malaysian, Asiana, Singapore, etc.
Martin – we flew Malaysian on the A380 on our recent trip to Europe and I can recommend the experience. We flew business and therefore had the upper deck on the A380 on the KL/LHR and CDG/KL legs of the flight. We’ve flown Qantas on the A380 previously (business also) and I think the experience on MH compares favourably to the QF experience but there are subtle differences in some areas – lack of choice of entertainment on MH is one downside they could improve on. Contrary to your understanding, there were a several families with children travelling in business (although no babies in the business cabin) on both legs of our journey. All in all, a positive experience and I wouldn’t hesitate to fly with MH again in business on a long-haul flight.