Malaysia Airlines' Puzzling Revived 747 Is Back In Service!

Maybe they have contracts with some of those 777 pilots who are qualified on the 747 and thus are just sitting around waiting to be certified on the 380?

Or it's one big trick to seduce us fans of the 744 🙂 It's working

The costs are minimal, because MAS currently operate 2 B744 F's so a pax version shouldn't add much cost. They have the pilots and cabin crew to do it.

Flew MH 370 a month before the incident...call me superstitious but not dying to fly Malaysia again!

Does Malaysia use 747s for cargo? If so, are cargo pilots allowed to double as commercial pilots, hence avoiding some of the added cost you mention?

Don't they still have a cargo division which flies 747's?
If those 747's are flown by their own pilots and they still perform maintenance on those cargo planes reactivating one passenger version won't be that hard I guess.

yes it does not really make sense considering the spare a380s would definitely support the ones under maintenance and they are just for kul-lhr route. but i kinda agree with Philip as this might be one of their ways of gaining people's attention- by bringing back the queen!. im really looking forward to flying in this plane again.

Love love love the retro livery, wish they hadn't "updated" to the current super-meh design. Also love the 744... as to the logic of the decision, MAS has long been locally called "Mana Ada System" i.e. "Where's the system"...

There are also A380 flights to Jeddah and Medina. But maybe they are selling their A380. In the news they told, malaysia wanted to sell all A380 and keep the B772, now they sold the B772 and kept the A380. Maybe tomorrow theres another news...

Hang on! I thought Malysian is being run by the best manager in the business??

If this is true, I'm going to assume they know what they are doing.

I'm not that superstitious, but I have to say that I am have been somewhat avoiding Malaysian and Asiana and if I do end up flying with them, I plan on being nice and buzzed. The reason is obviously not the aircraft, but from talking with several heavy pilots, their thought is that the cockpit culture of the Asian carriers have not caught up with the rest of the world. In both Asia and the Middle East, everything is driven by ego...which doesn't work well during an emergency in the cockpit.

Yes maybe they have an agreement to sell two of the A380's and want to bring in the 747-400 to test the waters on if they use it on the route with ease and then finally sell some of the 380s

Not much of a surprise here considering the price of oil has been down which helps with their fuel costs (even older planes like the 747 become cost-effective again!). The same has been happening with British Airways and the 747s they fly. As many of you know, BA has been refurbishing its fleet of 747s.
Not that anyone cares, but I am not a fan of the old branding. I've flown through KLIA enough to see several of them parked on the tarmac gathering dirt and grime (had even thought they were an impounded ghost fleet...boo!). 😉

It's a Marketing campaign, reminding us how old is the company and therefore we should trust them and forget the recent incidents. It works for me

Hi, Lucky.

I'm not sure Malaysian operates A380 only to Europe, because I saw one of their big birds in all its majesty parked at the airport of Holy city of Medina in KSA, what seemed to be like a routine stop.

Word on the street is malaysian airlines are selling their entire fleet and dusting off the constellations and dc3.
Truly

@Adam "Asia" is a huge region with dozens of cultures that are vastly different from one another. I would be hesitant to lump all the countries into one single umbrella.

Hey Lucky!

Not sure if you knew, but since we're on the subject of 747's when I was searching for flights between LHR and Moscow I found out that BA flys a 747 there? Seems a bit strange that they would fly a fully serviced long haul plane (with a first class cabin) on just a three hour flight. Do you how BA even fills those First and Club World Cabins? Just wondered about your thoughts on the subject...!

@Deodorant- I understand the vastness of Asia and the "Middle East" along with the lack of political correctness in "lumping" any country, culture, or ethnicity together. With that said, I have traveled the world and feel confident in saying that certain qualities of both Middle Eastern and Asian culture are pervasive and do not work well in a cock-pit environment.

In fact, the definition of "culture" is a set of collective beliefs of a particular society. So please, tell me how a geographical area's culture could not possibly have a bearing on operations within an aircraft. Do you think that they throw out their engrained beliefs in the name of cockpit resource management? Look up the accident report on Asiana flight 214; are you telling me the culture of the pilots had nothing to do with this?

Noticed in a comment on Live and Let's Fly that they've apparently reversed course on this. The whole thing is very odd! http://airlineroute.net/2016/04/28/mh-747update3/

Whatever happens to all this? Did the retro livery 747-400 every fly after those few scheduled London rotations were cancelled?

I hate the fact that they have cancelled the plan and sold the 747 in the last fortnight. Iwas really excited for the queen...she brings out nostalgic memories of aviation in my life :'(