14 July 2023
India is now the top market for Malaysia Airlines as the carrier has been steadily increasing operations in India.
Even as airlines recover ground post-pandemic, their business expansion strategy may not be the same as it was in 2019.
For Malaysia Airlines, this has meant increasing capacity to India faster than other markets simply because there is more demand from there compared to some of its other top markets, including Australia and China.
Top market
Malaysia Airlines is seeing strong demand from India, so much so that it is now the carrier’s top market, overtaking even Australia.
Yin May Lau, group chief marketing and customer experience officer of Malaysia Airlines, told Financial Express,
“We are already above 90% of pre-Covid times in our India operations. By putting in 60 flights we will reach the 2019 numbers. When the pandemic started to wane, India showed one of the most encouraging recoveries we have seen so far.”
Malaysia Airlines currently has 55 weekly flights to India to six cities. Lau said that the plan is to increase it further to 60 flights as a response to strong demand from the country.
Meeting demand
It’s not all that surprising to see India emerge as the carrier’s top market.
Even before the pandemic, India was among the top three markets for Malaysia Airlines, but the country has seen a remarkable jump in air passenger demand after the pandemic. Lau said,
“India is the largest market for you globally. Before Covid-19 it was in the top three. Australia was number one but the intensity in growth shown by the Indian market is higher than Australia at the moment.”
China has traditionally been Malaysia Airlines’ strong supplier of traffic, but it is also a market that has been one of the worst affected by COVID-related curbs. Even as it makes a recovery, Malaysia Airlines is focusing more on India for now, deploying more than double the capacity to the country compared to China.
Lau added that the global market is behaving quite differently in a post-pandemic world. Malaysia Airlines is simply following the trend and putting inventory where the demand is.
Steadily increasing
Malaysia Airlines’ India operations have grown since last year when it had 25 weekly flights. With India opening its borders to international tourists on March 27th, 2022, and Malaysia following soon after from April 1st, it was the perfect time for the carrier to begin redeploying its aircraft to the country substantially.
The airline flies to six destinations in India – Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Chennai, and there are plans to include some more destinations in South India, including Trivandrum and Trichy.
While point-to-point travel to Malaysia remains strong, a significant portion of passengers from India flying Malaysian Airlines also have onward connections to other destinations, particularly Australia and New Zealand.
However, Malaysia Airlines isn’t the only carrier flying between the two countries. It faces competition from other popular airlines, including IndiGo, AirAsia, AirAsia X, and Batik Air Malaysia, many of which fly from multiple locations in India. However, looking at the current trends, it seems there’s enough demand for all of them.
Source: simpleflying.com
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