KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) says it has reduced network capacity by 20 per cent, ahead of the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia's latest directive, as part of proactive steps to ensure safe and reliable operations.
The reduced network involved Malaysia Airlines, Firefly and Amal's routes in domestic Malaysia, Asean, North Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Greater China, South Asia and the Middle East.
"We are fully committed to ensuring safe and reliable operations and remains steadfast in focusing our efforts towards stabilising our operations," MAG group managing director Datuk Captain Izham Ismail said in a statement today.
"While it is a difficult decision, our focus is to prioritise customers first, ensuring we can deliver credible flight schedules and ensure the best possible customer experience moving forward," he added.
Izham said as air travel returned to normalcy with airlines globally restoring capacity into the market, it had been managing its schedules proactively to mitigate post-pandemic challenges including supply chain disruptions.
"We made the decision to carefully restore our capacity taking into consideration the speed of supply chain support. This is also contributed by global shortages due to a lack of resources that are causing delays in the production of spare parts by aircraft and parts manufacturers (OEMs).
This had led to longer turnaround times for engine overhauls and repairs, including for the MAG fleet, which relies on external partners for these services, resulting in lack of engines for its operations, Izham said.
Despite these challenges, he said MAG had maintained the quality of its maintenance work, managing both internally and externally, even with the associated high costs and financial impacts.
At the same time, it is working closely with its stakeholders, including regulators and OEMs, to effectively address operational challenges and ensure timely and reliable delivery of spare parts, encompassing adequate and high quality spares and a robust aircraft maintenance programme.
Izham said the global shortage of parts had affected the on-time delivery of MAG's new aircraft orders, which, in turn, had impacted its fleet planning.
By 2024, MAG was scheduled to receive 17 new aircraft orders as part of its fleet modernisation programme and support our growth requirements.
However, to date, MAG has only received four Boeing 737-8 aircraft out of the 13 contractually agreed by 2024.
For the A330neo, MAG was scheduled to receive four aircraft but is now expected to receive three by the end of the year as committed by Airbus.
Izham also said MAG had experienced attrition of skilled workforce as new MRO players, both local and international, had entered the Malaysian market.
To address this, it is collaborating with partners to augment its manpower and increase its skilled engineering workforce.
"We have improved remuneration packages to sustain a strong talent pipeline for MAG. We apologise and understand the frustration this has brought to our customers, and wish to assure that our team is working diligently to provide affected customers with compensation options available which include flight reallocations, and full refunds without any penalty charges."