Having lived and worked in Malaysia for over twenty years I have flown on
Malaysian Airlines on numerous short-haul, regional and long haul
flights.The airline has a modern fleet largely centred on Boeing and
Airbus aircraft, their engineering and maintenance standards are
reputed to be very good, and the hub airport, Kuala Lumpur International
Airport (KLIA) is a delightful, new airport with state-of-the-art facilities- it certainly is architecturally stunning!
In flight service by the friendly, polite but efficient cabin crew is a
delight. I would rank MAS very highly on this aspect, among the very best.
The in flight magazine tucked into the seat pocket, it is called ,
Going Places, is a good read, although I have come across better ones
and the cuisine on board is good but perhaps not the best. I consider
they sometimes fall between two stalls and serve bland Asian style food.
On a long flight, say, the Kuala Lumpur-London or KL-Los Angeles sectors, I
would prefer to have a choice of a fiery Asian curry and a classic European dish such as
sirloin steak. The wines they serve are good, all drinks are
complementary, and there are on board duty free sales, although the
selection is not that wide. Seating is fine and the space is adequate.
For sectors such as KL-Madras, KL-Delhi, KL-London and KL-Sydney, the load factor is usually very high and early booking is advisable.
MAS is by no means the cheapest airline around. It is undercut by several
Eastern European, Middle Eastern airlines and others, including SIA, but
the marginal difference in price is insufficient to deter me from
frequently using Malaysia’s national flag carrier.