KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB) has today signed a wide-ranging commercial agreement with Singapore Airlines (SIA) to share revenue on flights between Singapore and Malaysia, expand codeshare routes, and participate in joint marketing activities to develop tourism.
In a statement released today, MAB said the new agreement also includes SIA’s subsidiaries SilkAir and Scoot, as well as Firefly, the sister airline of MAB.
MAB group chief executive officer Captain Izham Ismail said the airline is honoured to collaborate alongside SIA in providing customers a more competitive product between Malaysia and Singapore with the opportunity to travel to more global destinations.
“This is in line with Malaysia Airlines’ long-term business plan goal of engaging in deep partnerships to extend our reach and presence globally.
“This partnership is more than a conventional partnership and we believe in the mutual benefits for both airline groups and countries,” he said.
SIA chief executive officer Goh Choon Phong said the airline is pleased to take its partnership with Malaysia Airlines to a new level.
“This will be a win-win for both our airline groups, and provide new benefits for our customers. In particular, the expanded scope of our partnership has the potential to provide a significant boost to the tourism industries in both Malaysia and Singapore, as well as the wider Southeast Asia region,” said Goh.
The agreement was resulted from the signing of a memorandum of understanding in June 2019, which aimed to provide new customer benefits as well as new business opportunities.
It noted that fights between Singapore and Malaysia will operate under a joint business arrangement. MAB and SIA intend to coordinate flight schedules to provide customers with more flight choices and frequencies for passenger convenience.
The two airline groups also plan to offer joint fare products, align corporate programmes to enhance the value proposition to customers, while exploring tie-ups between their frequent-flyer programmes.
Additionally, the two airline groups will expand their codeshare arrangements to include more destinations on each other’s networks.
Currently, the airlines codeshare on flights between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Penang.
With the expansion, SIA and SilkAir plan to codeshare on MAB’s domestic flights that will serve a total of 16 destinations in Malaysia.
In turn, MAB will progressively codeshare on flights between Singapore and Malaysia, Europe, South Africa and other destinations once necessary approvals are granted.
It said this will be implemented in phases as it would represent a significant expansion of the existing codeshare agreement, while providing MAB with more opportunities to expand connectivity to and from Malaysia.
Both airlines will also explore the potential development of airpasses, enabling customers travelling to Malaysia through the Kuala Lumpur and Singapore hubs more choices to visit other parts of the country such as Kuantan, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu on a single ticket.
Travellers can expect a seamless experience of convenience and flexibility while enjoying multi-stop itineraries.
Subject to regulatory approvals, the codeshare flights will be progressively made available for sale through the airlines’ respective booking channels in key markets around the world.