Malaysia Airlines’ truly amazing comeback

SUBANG – Malaysia Airlines has announced a net profit of RM876 million for its second quarter ending June 30, 2009.

This represents the highest-ever quarterly net profit recorded by the airline.

This profit offsets Malaysia Airline’s RM695 million net losses in first quarter 2009, leading to a first half net profit of RM181 million.

Due to the recovery of oil prices, Malaysia Airlines’ fuel hedging losses of RM640 million in the first quarter has been reversed with a RM1.3 billion gain in the second quarter 2009.

Since the beginning of the year, the airline has successfully increased its load factors to 66 percent in Q209, a double-digit growth of 10 percent compared to Q109.

In response to the growing demand with domestic load factor up to 69 percent at Q209, Malaysia Airlines has increased capacity by six percent by adding more aircraft for the domestic sector.

The airline also made substantial load factor gains for its international routes with loads up 11 percent to 65 percent compared to Q109.

Managing director and CEO, Idris Jala, said, “We are managing well in this crisis. While the operating environment remains tough, the load factors have increased due to our aggressive strategies to boost sales. On the domestic front, more passengers are travelling with us.

“On the international routes, we have performed better than the industry average as we are less dependent on the front end.”

He added, “Our forecasted booking numbers for the second half of the year are encouraging. With the loads on an upward trend, we will now be able to work on increasing the yield.”

From January to June 2009, Internet sales at www.malaysiaairlines.com grew 82 percent or RM272 million compared to the same period last year.

Recently, Malaysia Airlines launched the ASEAN Pass. Since the soft launch of the pass on June 1, 5,000 passes have been sold, generating RM1.2 million in revenue.

Jala added, “We expect the economy to recover next year, and are looking forward to take delivery of our new B737-800 in 2010 to capture the expected growth.

“We are reviewing the aircraft requirements according to supply and demand, and realigning our capacity to tap into the growth in demand.

“We will increase our frequencies into key ASEAN capitals, South Asia, China and offer more flights to certain points in Australia.

“In the Middle East, we are looking at expanding our services into at least three new destinations. We are currently in the process of finalising these details,” Jala said.