KUALA LUMPUR, 28 November 2022: Malaysia Airlines will suspend flights to Brisbane at the end first quarter of 2023, calling it a rationalisation exercise under its ongoing business review.
The last MH134 flight will depart from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur on 26 March 2023. However, flights from Kuala Lumpur to four other Australian destinations – Adelaide, Sydney, Perth, and Melbourne – will continue, providing 43 direct services per week between Australia and Malaysia.
In November, the airline scheduled just three direct services using an A330 and will increase flights to 13 per month from December 2022 to March 2023 to cater to peak holiday traffic during the Australian summer season.
Customers who booked on the direct Kuala Lumpur-Brisbane service after 27 March 2023 will fly with Malaysia Airlines to Sydney or Melbourne to connect with Qantas codeshare flights to Brisbane.
Malaysia Airlines Group Chief Executive Officer Captain Izham Ismail explained: “After a thorough business review, we have made a difficult decision to suspend our operations in Brisbane to ensure we operate and use our fleet at an optimum level, as well as maximising revenue on every route we fly to while facing strong headwinds from the continued increase in fuel cost, forex and interest rate.”
Forward bookings to other Australian cities remain encouraging and head of 2019’s performance, according to the airline’s CEO, who added the focus was on ramping up the network to achieve full recovery by 2024.
This year the airline has launched routes from Kuala Lumpur to Doha, Haneda and Yogyakarta. From Kota Kinabalu, flights resumed to Singapore.
