Malaysia Airlines’ New Booking System: Much improved!

Here’s a quick review of the new Malaysia Airlines booking system.

The old one had a lot of problems and shortcomings. This new one is much welcomed with lots of improvements.

- You can now mix your classes or fare types in one booking. For example, promo fare + flexi fare, or economy on the outbound and business on the inbound. UPDATE: Seems like they've removed the ability to mix cabin classes in one booking.

- You can also book direct check-through tickets and select any combination of flights with different layover times. The old system, you were presented with what MH figured best suited you so sometimes you'd get very short connecting times for a flight from KCH to KUL (1h35m only, you'll miss your connecting flight if the KLIA aerotrain breaks down again or the incoming flight is delayed).

- Seat selections at time of booking are now all FREE! Hooray! Before, you had to pay at time of booking but selection was free if you did a web-check-in before departure.

- Maybank2u payments are currently down so only paypal, cc and cimbclicks are available.

This is a much better system than the old, archaic one. Makes booking tickets a lot easier. Unfortunately, if you like booking tickets with their app, that one's still stuck on the old system.

Their Enrich program will also see some changes in June.

MASwings Viking Air DHC6 Series 400 Twin Otter

MASwings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines, has finally replaced all of its museum pieces (DHC6 Series 300) with brand new DHC6-400 planes. The 400 seats the same number of people (19) but is much newer and more modern, powered by a newer engine model and featuring a new cockpit outfitted with modern technology.

While the older ancient planes only had oscillating fans to keep the cabin cool as well as very hard seats and an interior that felt more like a country bus, these new planes now feature a modern cabin with comfortable seats and yes, gasper vents and LED lights (see photo below). :-)

Did you know that the Twin Otter has a respectable range of around 1500km or more? It also has a service ceiling of around 7500m and a cruise speed of about 280km/h.

I noticed that MASwings christened their new planes with names of rivers such as Padas and Kinabatangan (the plane in this album, which brought me from Miri to Lawas and back) - both are rivers in Sabah.

I have flown on the twin otter with Maswings a number of times now but this was my first in the 400. It was not unsual to see daily goods and sundries packed under the seats in the past as the planes often were the only means to quickly bring in perishable items from the larger cities to the interiors of Sarawak. On this flight and the return, saw no such thing and the cabin remained clean and comfortable.

The older planes were notorious for getting into accidents (a few fatal ones). Hope the new planes will have a clean record for as long as they remain in service.

For more info, check out this news article:
https://my.news.yahoo.com/maswings-phases-ageing-twin-otter-090849961.html