MAS Eyes 80 Per Cent Load Factor On A380 Service To Paris Next Year.

Date: 17 December 2012

MAS Eyes 80 Per Cent Load Factor On A380 Service To Paris Next Year.

AMSTERDAM (Bernama) - Malaysia Airlines (MAS) expects a load factor of 80 per cent for its Kuala Lumpur-Paris-Kuala Lumpur daily route when the Airbus A380 is rolled out in March 1 next year to replace the current Boeing B777 daily services.

"France is a very big country. A lot of French people travel outside the country and at the same time, we have a lot of business going on between the Malaysian government/businessmen and French government/businessmen as well as within the other European countries," said MAS Regional Senior Vice-President for the UK and Europe, Huib Gorter.

Furthermore, he added, Malaysia is part of the strongly growing tourism sector of the Asia Pacific region and the country itself is an attractive destination for Europeans despite the economic and financial crises in several regions of the world.

"One of the key things is to price your products creatively and at the right time. We have very very good airlines competing with us and we can never ever lose sight, we have to be on top of that and I think we have done it quite well," he told Malaysian journalists attending the just recently concluded IATA Global Media Day 2012 held in Geneva.

Despite the gloomy eurozone economic outlook, Gorter sees next year as an excellent one for MAS in Europe as the A380 aircraft will definitely enhance MAS' brandname. He is confident that with the A380's introduction into service with an exciting new level of comfort, luxury and convenience in long-haul travel "we can expect the number of passengers to increase more and more."

The A380 has a capacity of 494 seats in a three-class configuration comprising eight first-class seats and 350 economy-class on the main deck, together with 66 business-class seats and 70 economy-class seats on the upper deck.

Gorter added that with the deployment of the superjumbo on two of the popular European routes (London and Paris), the national carrier will be able to offer the latest premium products and services to travellers and this customer proposition is also certain to increase tourist arrivals into Malaysia next year.

Since MAS commenced its A380 operations on the KL-London route on July 1, 2012, customers' response has been overwhelming, he said, adding that there has been a 22 per cent rise in passenger load from London to KL.

Gorter also said although the UK is MAS' biggest market in Europe, Paris could be another high profile destination, followed by Holland, Germany and Turkey. Currently, direct flights from Europe to Malaysia (including code sharing) are from Amsterdam (17), Frankfurt (nine), London (14), Paris (daily) and Istanbul (3), with 14 being operated by MAS.

Meanwhile, in order to increase tourist arrivals in Malaysia, Gorter said MAS would be working closely not only with Tourism Malaysia but also with the Sarawak Tourism Board, hoteliers, travel agents and those related with the travel industry. "We have to be very quick and competitive, we need to have strategies and we have estimated about 122 European tour operators will feature Malaysia in their brochures and online sites," he said.

The Malaysian tourism industry is targeted to contribute RM104 billion to the country's Gross National Income by 2020 for which Malaysia will need to achieve 36 million tourist arrivals in 2020 from 24 million in 2009, a 50 per cent growth.

Malaysia Airlines is the eighth operator of this new aircraft and will receive its remaining two A380s by the first quarter of 2013.

From Azlina Aziz 

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