What's Malaysia Airlines like today? MEL-KUL-JHB-KUL-BKK-KUL-MEL on MH in Business Class.

[Austman]

I recently took 6 flights on Malaysia Airlines (MH), all in Business Class.

It was basically a single MEL-BKK return ticket which transits KUL but currently gets a "free" (pay taxes only) domestic side trip offer in Malaysia. It cost just under AUD $3,800.00. All flights booked into MH Z Class which is discount Business Class.

The itinerary is: MEL-xKUL-JHB. JHB-xKUL-BKK. BKK-xKUL-MEL.

MEL = Melbourne, KUL = Kuala Lumpur, JHB = Johor Bahru, BKK = Bangkok.

So it's a combination of international long haul (MEL-KUL and KUL-MEL), international short haul (KUL-BKK and BKK-KUL) and domestic (KUL-JHB and JHB-KUL) flights.

Malaysia Airlines (MH) gets a fair bit of flak on AFF. Poor service, poor meals, poor lounges, poor aircraft etc. So it was interesting to see what MH is currently actually like.

All the fights are done!

So it's off with the TR:

 

[Austman]

1. MEL-KUL 00:30-05:45 MH0128 A330-300 seat 4D (moved to 5D on board).

I decided to take a 00:30 departure and try to sleep overnight on the MH A330-300 in their Business Class fully flat seat. At a scheduled 8:15 duration, it's a bit of a longer flight than MEL-SIN for example, making some decent sleep actually (more) possible.

Being Qantas Platinum / Oneworld Emerald meant I could use the Qantas First Class lounge until it closed at about 23:40. MH uses the Marhaba Lounge next door.

I was with hand luggage only, checked-in online and could go directly to the lounge(s) without needing to visit a check-in counter or kiosk. But I did have to collect paper boarding passes when boarding at the gate.

The online BP:



At the QF First lounge:




On board the MH A330-300 with full flat seating, seat 4D:




With the door closed, I noticed that both seats 5D and 5G directly behind me were vacant. So with crew permission, I moved to 5D. I think 5D actually had wider leg room.

MH supplies a seat cover/duvet, a blanket/pillow, slippers, socks, bottled water etc and a very nice amenity kit.

The slippers come in sizes. Large is good for me haha:




The Aspinal of London amenity kit is one of the nicest I have seen. And it had some good quality products inside:

 

[Austman]

Of course, there are pre-departure drinks, including champagne offered. And there was a hot towel service.

The Menu:



So it was a satay supper followed by a full breakfast.

The satay is served immediately after takeoff. It's fairly simple and quick to serve:



I slept quite well. For nearly 6 hours.

Breakfast is served about 2 hours (maybe a bit less) before landing:






I don't think there was ever a drinks list (?).

But I was quite happy with the wine on offer. Nothing stellar but quite drinkable. I think I only had a single glass before sleeping and breakfast.

 

[Austman]

2. KUL-JHB 08:05-09:00 MH1037 737-800 seat 1F.

If you have time in KUL airport, as an arriving MH Business Class passenger you can visit the MH international business class lounges (or the MH international first class lounge if you have status) before going through passport control to the domestic gates and the MH domestic lounge or to the ordinary international arrivals.

There is a separate passport control path you can take if transiting to a domestic flight. It's never been crowded in my experience.
Luggage, AFAIK, is checked through.

I did exactly that. And still had about 30 minutes in the MH domestic lounge.

To the flight. The first row of some MH 737s is quite spacious!





Pre-departure drinks were served. And there was a hot towel service.

All MH domestic flights and domestic lounges are alcohol free.

To their credit, even with just a 40 minute actual flight time, a small hot breakfast was served!

 

[Austman]

3. JHB-KUL 09:35-10:40 MH1038 737-800 seat 1F.

There is no MH domestic lounge at JHB. Or any lounge at all anymore.

I think there's only 1 x MH domestic "golden lounge" left in the domestic network and that's at KUL. There are some other domestic 3rd party lounges in some cities that I think you'd get access to if in Business Class.

On board service was similar to the KUL-JHB flight. Except a different small hot breakfast was served:




Similar to international to domestic transit arrivals, there is a separate path at KUL T1 for domestic to international transit departures.

It's never been crowed in my experience. In fact, this time it was just me!

Domestic MH flights arrive at the main terminal but the MH first class lounge is over at the satellite terminal.

As many would know, the aerotrain transport between KUL T1 "main" and "satellite" terminals is out of service. But the busses seem to work well.

The signage states that July 2024 will be when the new trains start!

 

[Quickstatus]

satay supper

What the?.

5 satay sticks. The usual MH J is only 3 sticks. IIRC 4 when MH used to have F.
How did you manage 5?

 

[Austman]

4. KUL-BKK 16:20-17:40 MH0774 737-800 seat 1F.

This was a longer transit in KUL than I really wanted. But it was better priced at ticket purchase time.

MH would not allow a change to an earlier flight on the day without a fare recalculation. That recalculation was well over AUD $1,000.00.

So, I "suffered" in the MH first class lounge for a couple of hours more than needed.

The lounge menu:



Some dishes:





And then, who should I bump into but AFF's @JessicaTam !

So Jessica and I had a drink or two in the MH lounge(s) before heading off to our flights.

On board MH0774, the usual pre-departure drinks were offered as well as a hot towel service.

The menu:



And despite what the menu stated and my past MH international short-haul flight experiences which have been alcohol free,

*** BEER has returned to MH international short-haul ***

A choice of two actually!

So that's different! And about time. But there was no wine or any other alcohol.

I ordered the cod. And a beer beverage :




Arrival in BKK was fine. I don't think there's any priority line for Business Class. It was pretty quick regardless.

Not so quick was the Bangkok traffic at 18:00! I was in a Grab (like Uber) by 17:52 but it took 1h:40m to get to my hotel, 40km away, on the river, in "central" Bangkok. The same trip can be done in about 35m in light traffic.

 

[Austman]

So that's 4 of my 6 MH flights.

I still have

5. BKK-KUL

and

6. KUL-MEL (the only flight out of the 6 where MH's "Chef on Call" pre-ordered meals were offered)

to go.

They are flown already, so stayed tuned if interested.

 

[Austman]

How did you manage 5?

There are two ways to do it:

1. As per the menu, you can ask for a "combination" of chicken and beef/lamb.

2. Look deserving of 5.

 

[kpc]

When I flew MH Syd - Kul rtn in J in June this year, I found MH very generous with their Satay servings.
In fact, the service onboard was very good...the IFE and seat were average though. There was no WiFi but I believe this is about to change!

 

[Quickstatus]

combination

Combo was still ever only 3 for me.
Maybe I didn't qualify under #2

What did you think of the throne seats wrt leg tunnel

 

[Austman]

There was no WiFi but I believe this is about to change!

I should mention that.

On my 2 x A330-300 flights only, there were WiFi signs (called MHconnect - see my earlier photo of my MEL-KUL seat), and it was announced as available by crew, and there was a WiFi signal and I could connect.

But I could never get any internet access ...

I didn't really want it anyway.

So I'm not sure what the issue was. It might have been me? ?

But for sure, there will be WiFi available soon if not already offered. Not sure about the 737s however. There was no WiFi or MHconnect on my 4 x 737 flights.

 

[Austman]

What did you think of the throne seats wrt leg tunnel

I didn't take one.

There are only 2 x "throne" seats on the MH A330-300 (seats 4K and 6K) and they had already been taken on my MEL-KUL flight.

On MEL-KUL, seat 5D was had reasonable leg tunnel width. You can see it in the photo.

The throne seats were still available on my KUL-MEL flight but I read that the leg tunnel is not so wide with the throne seats.

I can say that, on my KUL-MEL flight, my seat 2A (a solo window seat) had even better leg tunnel width than seat 5D.

 

[Aeolus]

I recently took 6 flights on Malaysia Airlines, all in Business Class.

It was basically a single MEL-BKK return ticket which transits KUL but gets a "free" domestic side trip in Malaysia. Cost was just under AUD $3,800.00.

The itinerary is: MEL-KUL-JHB-KUL-BKK-KUL-MEL. MEL = Melbourne, KUL = Kuala Lumpur, JHB = Johor Bahru, BKK = Bangkok.

So it's a combination of international long haul (MEL-KUL-MEL), international short haul (KUL-BKK-KUL) and domestic (KUL-JHB-KUL) flights.

Malaysia Airlines (MH) gets a fair bit of flak on AFF. Poor service, poor meals, poor lounges, poor aircraft etc. So it was interesting to see what MH is actually like.

All the fights are done!

So it's off with the TR:

Out of interest, how many QF SC do you gain in total (assuming you’re crediting to QF?)

 

[Austman]

Out of interest, how many QF SC do you gain in total (assuming you’re crediting to QF?)

All 6 flights booked into MH Business Class Z.

Qantas calls that "flexible economy".

So it looks like, for a QFF Platinum, I'll earn on QFF: 140 SCs and 10,600 points.

 

[serfty]

At the QF First lounge

Note that from February, the late MELAKL flight is no more and the Qantas lounges will close once QF95 boards ~9pm.

I took the midnight MH flight earlier this year.

I dropped in to the The lounge MH contracted to. It is in the old UA space.

 

[Pushka]

Combo was still ever only 3 for me.
Maybe I didn't qualify under #2

What did you think of the throne seats wrt leg tunnel

We eaxh had one of these. The seats in front and behind are x2. The lady in front of me turned around and said she was excited to get a window seat then saw mine and said she wished she'd booked one of those. They are fine, maybe a bit claustrophobic. I was offered many more than three satays on flight from Australia. I think I might have said yes.

 

[jrfsp]

Looks good so far, ive always enjoyed flying MH, maybe not as refined as SQ but ive always found the service friendly and hospitable.

 

[Austman]

5. BKK-KUL 20:05-23:20 MH0781 737-800 seat 1F.

Time to head back to MEL.

I wanted to change to an earlier BKK-KUL flight. Just to a flight a couple of hours earlier because MH0781 seemed to have a history of being late. For some days prior, it had been possible to do that with no fare difference. But, despite both the MH App and www.malaysiaairlines.com going right up to the final "continue" button, I always then got an error message:





OK, I thought, I'll give MH a call and see what they say. It was quite a long on-hold wait time but at least the call centre tried to be helpful. I think they themselves then contact reservations. The explanation, I *think*, was that the BKK-KUL and KUL-MEL flights were married sectors and there was no fare class availability although the new flights were still both in Z class. And I could change to much earlier BKK-KUL flights on the same day or even on other days OK.

I gave up. For the sake a 2 hours change it wasn't worth it.

And then an email from MH at 11:35:

Important Flight Information​

ETD Change Alert

Flight MH781 from Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) on XXNov2023 has had a change to its estimated departure time. The flight will be departing at 20:50 on XXNov2023.

In the end the flight was about an hour late. Something I was trying to avoid. Oh well.

So off to BKK airport. This time, the 40 km Grab journey took 54 mins. Traffic was starting to get heavy at 15:30.

Although I now had 2 x online boarding passes, I went to a counter to collect paper versions. No waiting at all. But no offer to take the earlier BKK-KUL flight either... And no mention of any priority lane for Business Class. I don't think there was one. Security was quick. Passport control not so much. A screen, rather optimistically, stated that it was a 10 minute wait time. It was at least double that!

MH uses the Miracle Lounge(s) in BKK. But Business Class and Oneworld status passengers have other options depending on the time of their flight.

And for me, thanks to a Business Class BP (not Oneworld status), that meant the Qatar Airways Premium Lounge. Apparently open from 16:00 to 20:40. Perfect !

The QR lounge menus are via QR code:



Some of the a la carte food:



The filet mignon looks a bit burnt in my photo but it was fine. If a bit tough.

The 20:40 QR lounge closing time was incorrect however! I was nicely "booted" out when it actually closed at around 19:30.

So it was off to the Miracle Lounge for a while until MH0781 boarded. The helpful(?) monitors in the lounge went from "delayed" to "final call" without anything in between. BKK airport is pretty vast. It took at least 10 mins to get to the gate, even in a rush!

But all was good in the end.

Service on board MH0781 was similar to MH0771. And beer was again available!

Sorry, I have no photos of the inflight service, but I did order a Thai green chicken curry with rice and vegetables that was pretty good!

Arrival into KUL was about an hour late.

 

[Austman]

6. KUL-MEL 09:40-20:45 MH0129 A330-300 seat 2A.

The final flight! A daytime flight which meant I had to overnight in KUL after my late night arrival from BKK.

As usual, MH0781 from BKK, being a 737, arrived at the main terminal while MH0129 was departing from the satellite terminal. Also in the satellite is the MH first class lounge and the Sama-Sama Express air-side transit hotel where I had booked a 6 hours stay. Your stay time actually starts you check-in.

I went to the MH first class lounge for about an hour and checked-in to the Sama-Sama at around 02:00. This gave me an 08:00 check-out time, 1h:40m before my flight. I got a solid 5 hours sleep!

But another email from MH had arrived at about 06:00:

Important Flight Information​

ETD Change Alert

Flight MH129 from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) to Melbourne Airport (MEL) on XXNov2023 has had a change to its estimated departure time. The flight will be departing at 11:50 on XXNov2023.

That's over 2 hours delayed. It was going to be a casual breakfast in the MH first class lounge.

The breakfast menu:



I was disappointed by the American Breakfast before, so went with the Nasi Lemak this time, which was pretty good:




Eventually boarding started at around 11:30 with the usual pre-depature drinks including champagne, a hot towel service and amenity items the same as the MEL-KUL flight.

Seat 2A is an excellent solo seat. It's by the window and has its bench/storage/tray etc on the aisle side. It had the most legroom width of seats 4D, 6D and 2A.

Earlier, I posted that I moved on my MEL-KUL flight from seat 4D to 5D. I now realise it was probably from seat 4D to 6D!

Regardless, a funny quirk of the MH A330-300 Business Class is that the leg space width really does vary quite a bit from seat to seat.

Here's the menu:



I already knew the menu from my MEL-KUL flight. I thought I'd want lunch rather than brunch and with the delayed departure now to around noon, it was a good choice to order "Chef on Call" which is MH's pre-order meal service. Of my 6 flights, this was the only one that offered Chef on Call. At the time I selected, there were just 2 choices available: Grilled Beef Medallion or Red Curry Snapper(?). But closer to the actual flight the full Chef on Call options became available. You need to order Chef on Call at least 24 hours before your flight.

Here is what the Grilled Beef Medallion is supposed to look like:



And here is how it was actually presented:



It tasted really good. But it was as tough as anything!!

Later in the flight I ordered a Filled French Baguette with Roasted Beef. I was expecting something a bit ooh la la.

Here it is:



It was served hot. And it was tasty. But it was not very ooh la la.

And finally, as per the menu, at around 2 hours before landing there was a satay service (see photo from MEL-KUL flight). With the delay, that was served at about 21:00 Melbourne time. It did make quite a good "dinner".

A small confession: The satay photo I posted for the MEL-KUL flight is actually from this KUL-MEL flight! I had it offered on the MEL-KUL flight but I skipped it in favour of sleep.