Malaysia Airlines defers plans to fly to new cities in India, China

In a statement, the national carrier said it will also consolidate its network by increasing frequencies and capacity to selected destinations while revisiting sectors that have demonstrated poor performance.

The national carrier currently operates 30 weekly flights from Kuala Lumpur to seven Indian cities, which are New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

Frequencies into New Delhi, one of the three primary gateways in the Indian sub-continent, will be increased to daily flights from four times weekly, it said.

MAS said that in China, it flies into eight cities namely Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Kunming, Shanghai, Xiamen and X'ian.

It added that flights to Xiamen will now be increased to four weekly services from three, bringing the total number of flights per week from Kuala Lumpur to 54.

Capacity will be injected into Australia and New Zealand, specifically Perth and Auckland, in which passengers can look forward to flying on the B747 daily, it said, adding that current flights are operated on the B777.

"At present, Auckland is the only entry point into New Zealand and into Australia," MAS said.

It said that the realignment of network is expected to result in improving route financials, thereby leveraging on yield improvement opportunities, which is expected to bring about better performance.

The national carrier said it continues to monitor and evaluate its operations and will further realign and consolidate its services to complement traffic demand.