Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhan said at Farnborough that the carrier is accelerating its disposal of Boeing 747-400s and looking to phase out its 777-200ERs within three years, possibly replacing them with Airbus A330-300s.
Jauhan also said in an interview with Bloomberg that the fleet of six Airbus A380s will be used for London (twice daily), Sydney, Melbourne and Tokyo (all once daily flights).
MAS has 17 777-200ERs in its fleet, with an average age of 12.6 years, according to Maybank Investment Bank, with the youngest being 7.6 years old and the oldest 15.2 years.
“Since all the regional competitors have an average fleet age of less than 10 years, MAS has no choice but to obtain and maintain a perpetually young fleet, and so the B777-200ER must go, said Moshin Aziz, analyst at Maybank.
“The new A330-300 aircraft appears to be able to do the job; it will have a payload capability comparable to 777-200ER’s 57,950kg, and an enhanced range to 11,050km. The A330-300 will be able to do 94% of the B777-200ER missions and satisfies all of MAS’ requirements,” he added.
“We think this is a good fit for MAS. The new A330-300 aircraft is significantly cheaper (15%-20%) than the 777-200ER and can carry equal number of seats. Moreover, this will enable MAS to streamline its fleet to four types, simplify its operations and lower cost. The A380 will be used for long-haul high density routes, the A330 is for long-haul to medium-haul medium density routes, the 737-800 is for short-haul to medium-haul low density routes, and the ATR-72 is for low density short-haul routes,” he added.
