Ms. Yin May Lau, Group Chief Marketing and Customer experience – Malaysia Airlines
Lau Yin May, Group marketing and Customer Experience officer, Malaysia Airlines shares her perspective on Malaysia Airlines and discusses the importance of customer relationship management, reinventing digital customer strategies and navigating newer disruption in the marketing landscape.
“Since its inception, TAFI has shown true commitment towards creating a more evolved and stable environment for the travel industry. We are delighted to be the official carrier for TAFI Convention 2022. Our travel agents play a key role in supporting the recovery of the sector, and we truly appreciate the great lengths they have taken especially as travel demands continue to soar. We look forward to continuing to offer our support and strengthening these partnerships for many more years to come.
India has always been an important market for Malaysia Airlines and we are hopeful that through this association and convention, our agent partners would be encouraged to promote Malaysia Airlines to their customers and help create more leisure demand for Kuching, Sarawak, and other Malaysia destinations in the near future.”
Malaysia Airlines offers superior connectivity to more than 900 destinations in 170 territories across Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East via its alliance with oneworld®. In India, we are currently operating 29 weekly flights from five (5) major cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai.
The current load factor for the market has been encouraging with up to 70% load factor on these flights. We are looking at achieving pre-pandemic capacity back for India by the end of the year.
Overall, we are at approximately 60% of pre-COVID-19 capacity for domestic and international travel and are on track to achieve our target of more than 70% by year-end 2022 by gradually increasing our frequency and network.
MH PRODUCTS:
MHBiz Pro and MHBiz Plus
MHbiz Pro is designed for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and corporates that wish to self-manage their corporate travel. It is a self-managed direct booking tool that enables SMEs or any corporate client to book flights as well as manage their flight bookings online. MHbiz Pro customers are also able to monitor their travel expenses via the report-generating tool provided in the portal.
MHBiz Plus provides greater customisation to a company’s travel requirements with more benefits, which makes the experience of business travel easier and better.
MHexplorer
As part of our wider digitalisation roadmap, the airline also offers a suite of products to provide a seamless, holistic, and smooth digital journey for our young travellers through the MHexplorer programme, which offers discounts on flight tickets all-year round, additional baggage allowance, shopping discounts, and many more fun perks. MHexplorer members, and students can save up to 30% off Malaysia Airlines and Firefly flights.
MHholidays
MHholidays is the tour operating arm of Malaysia Airlines and offers products and services that enable guests to tailor-make holidays with the combination of flights, accommodations, ground transfer services as well as holiday packages in a single platform.
MH Pay
MH Pay is a new alternative payment method for consumers to purchase air tickets, ancillary products, and services via malaysiaairlines.com. In collaboration with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) through IATApay and powered by 2C2P, the full-suite payments platform, MHPay is designed to complement the airline’s entire array of digitalised payment methods by providing greater access to all payment options through a single integration point and offers a fast and secure way to purchase real-time airline tickets online as well as through our mobile app, with no additional service fees.
Bonus Side Trip programme
The ‘Bonus Side Trip’ programme allows passengers to add an extra leg to their journey and explore cultural gems at a minimal cost. As part of the programme, passengers will get a chance to explore one of the seven domestic getaway destinations in Malaysia i.e., Penang, Langkawi, Johor Bahru, Kuala Terengganu, Kota Bharu, Alor Setar, Kuantan.
Horizontal Fare Family (HFF)
Horizontal Fare Family (HFF) offers customers a flexible fare based on their travel needs, preferences, priorities, and purchasing capabilities. It is a fare brand name that consists of Lite, Basic, and Flex where each fare family has different benefits such as baggage allowance, seat selections, and priority services. These fare brands also offer different flexibility in terms of refunds and rebooking.
MALAYSIA AIRLINES IN THE NEWS
Malaysia Airlines has been named Asia’s Leading Airline for Business Class at the 29th World Travel Awards, adding to its honours record. The airline emerges as the winner after receiving the most votes from industry participants, consumers, media, and travel professionals across the region, outperforming other nominated full-service Asian airlines.
Malaysia Airlines has brought back its Bonus Side Trip programme for customers booking flights from the UK to Asia and Australasia. The offer allows passengers to include a stop in one of seven Malaysian destinations, with the carrier picking up the return domestic airfare from Kuala Lumpur – customers must pay the taxes, fees, and charges incurred.
Malaysia Airlines operated its first passenger flight using Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) on flight MH603 from Kuala Lumpur (KUL) to Singapore (SIN), which was refuelled at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). The historic flight was operated with a Boeing 737-800 aircraft fuelled by a blend of conventional jet fuel and Neste’s SAF, which is produced from 100% renewable waste and residue raw materials, such as animal fat waste that was used for the SAF fuelling on this flight.
Malaysia Airlines signed a provisional agreement to acquire 20 Airbus A330 Neos to replace its ageing fleet of A330 widebody jets in a deal that also involves aircraft leasing company Avolon. The airline will buy 10 of the planes from Airbus and then execute a sale-and-leaseback deal with Avolon, with the other 10 leased directly from Avolon, the carrier said.
Malaysia Airlines (MH) and Japan Airlines (JAL) have expanded their codeshare operations. This significant move reaffirmed the strategic Joint Business partnership entered into by both oneworld Alliance members in July 2020, to better serve the customers and facilitate trade between Malaysia and Japan.
Malaysia Airlines renew its partnership with SITA for a comprehensive upgrade that will link its global operations to its hub in Kuala Lumpur with fast, secure, and reliable network connectivity. As part of the five-year agreement, Malaysia Airlines will leverage SITA Connect, specifically designed for the air transport industry, to meet the airline’s needs in and outside airports.
