Malaysia Airlines has announced plans to expand its long haul network, which is something we haven’t otherwise seen the airline do in recent years.
In this post:
Malaysia Airlines adds Kuala Lumpur to Paris route
As of March 22, 2025, Malaysia Airlines will launch a new service between Kuala Lumpur (KUL) and Paris (CDG). The route will operate 4x weekly for the first week, and will then start operating daily. The service will have the following schedule:
MH21 Kuala Lumpur to Paris departing 11:40PM arriving 6:40AM (+1 day)
MH20 Paris to Kuala Lumpur departing 11:25AM arriving 6:10AM (+1 day)
The 6,492-mile flight is blocked at 13hr westbound and 12hr40min eastbound. Malaysia Airlines will use the Airbus A350-900 for the route, featuring 286 seats. This is comprised of four business class “plus” seats, 35 business class seats, and 247 economy seats.
Malaysia Airlines’ Paris service represents a route resumption, as it was last served in early 2016. Paris will be the oneworld carrier’s 68th destination. Currently the carrier’s only other service in Europe is to London (LHR), which it serves twice daily. Back in the day the airline also served Amsterdam (AMS) and Frankfurt (FRA), but there are no indications of that service returning.
Here’s how Datuk Captain Izham Ismail, the Managing Director of Malaysia Airlines Group, describes this new service:
“Our expansion into Europe marks a significant milestone for Malaysia Airlines. With the arrival of additional widebody aircraft starting this Quarter 4, we are ready to bring this long-awaited city back into our network. While the European market is highly competitive, we see tremendous potential for this route to attract key travellers, not just from Malaysia but also from neighbouring regions.”
“By launching direct services from Kuala Lumpur to Paris, we reaffirm our position as the flagship airline and strengthen our role as the gateway to Asia and beyond. This route will be served by our state-of-the-art A350-900 aircraft, which already operates on key routes like London and Doha, delivering a world-class travel experience to our passengers.”
Malaysia Airlines’ long haul struggles
Malaysia Airlines has had a really rough decade, so it’s nice to see things slowly moving in the right direction. To recap the challenges:
- In 2014, the airline had two Boeing 777s crash (including the mystery of MH370, plus MH17 being shot down), and the carrier’s reputation really tanked after that
- While Malaysia Airlines had started taking delivery of Airbus A380s in 2012, this turned up to be “too much plane” for the airline, and the carrier kept switching strategies with the jet, and the planes spent years parked, before formally retiring the fleet during the pandemic
- For years, Malaysia Airlines’ only modern, operational long haul aircraft were a fleet of six Airbus A350-900s, which isn’t exactly a whole lot to work with
- Throughout this time, the government of Malaysia basically gave the airline enough money to avoid liquidation, but not enough to run the airline successfully
Fortunately things are slowly starting to look up at the airline, in my opinion. Malaysia Airlines will soon start taking delivery of modern new Airbus A330-900neos, the carrier is introducing new premium products, and Malaysia Airlines has started flying to Doha, which is a smart place to funnel passengers through.
Bottom line
Malaysia Airlines will finally be returning to Paris, as the carrier commences daily flights from Kuala Lumpur as of March 2025, using Airbus A350s. Malaysia Airlines’ long haul fleet has been limited for many years, so I guess the upcoming delivery of some Airbus A330-900neos will free up aircraft that can be used for this service.
I wish Malaysia Airlines luck on this route. While the airline has a monopoly on this specific route, the Europe to Southeast Asia (and beyond) market is incredibly competitive…
What do you make of Malaysia Airlines resuming Paris flights?
Article doesn't mention that Malaysia Airlines is rolling out free unlimited WiFi for all passengers (all classes, don't need to be a member of Enrich frequent flyer program). Reading media reports and trip reviews, free WiFi currently appears to be available on all A350 aircraft, and selected A330 and 737 aircraft. The plan appears to be to progressively roll it out across the entire fleet.
The flight route takes them right over Ukraine. No thanks!
Too bad it's not with the A330neo with the much better seats. The current J-seats on the A350 (non-SAS planes) are rather uncomfortable and close to no privacy and not all aisle access. Only in 2026 will they start to replace these older seats which by that time will already be generations behind (comparing to Qatar and even BA!)
After the events of the last week, I wouldn't fly Malaysia Airlines if they were the only airline in the world. They left no respect for passengers or customer service and their safety standards are questionable at best. Avoid!
I concur. I had flights booked with them next week. Just three weeks before departure they were abruptly canceled and I had to scramble to rebook with another airline at worse times and a higher cost, without even a hint of an apology or any assistance provided. At least getting the money back was fairly simple. But I'd probably pay more +not+ to fly them in future.
MH is in a much, much, MUCH better position today than Garuda, which has severely cut its international network and frequencies, and is down to 2x weekly to AMS — a far cry from MH’s 2x daily to LHR. (Interestingly, for a non-Oneworld airline, GA flies to DOH as well — though how much of a codeshare agreement it has with QR I’m not sure.)
MH will soon expand with new A330-900neos and a new...
MH is in a much, much, MUCH better position today than Garuda, which has severely cut its international network and frequencies, and is down to 2x weekly to AMS — a far cry from MH’s 2x daily to LHR. (Interestingly, for a non-Oneworld airline, GA flies to DOH as well — though how much of a codeshare agreement it has with QR I’m not sure.)
MH will soon expand with new A330-900neos and a new business class, which was sorely needed given that MH almost never flies anything other than 737s within Southeast Asia, unlike all its other rivals. That said, TG is racing far ahead as far as the money-bleeding ASEAN carriers are concerned, between the secondhand A350s and A330-300s joining the fleet (plus the A321neo from 2025) and the slow but steady exit of the never-refurbished 777-200ER, which I’ve had to withstand far too many times.
I don’t understand the relevance of Garuda to MH. A better comparison may be SQ and MH.
Why on earth would I compare MH to SQ? SQ is the ONLY Southeast Asian airline to have maintained the luxury and critical acclaim that Northeast Asian airlines like CX, JAL, ANA and EVA are renowned for. SQ — even Star Alliance partner TG for that matter — have a big European network; TG even serves Scandinavian cities like ARN and OSL that SQ can’t. In contrast, MH and GA have barely managed to maintain...
Why on earth would I compare MH to SQ? SQ is the ONLY Southeast Asian airline to have maintained the luxury and critical acclaim that Northeast Asian airlines like CX, JAL, ANA and EVA are renowned for. SQ — even Star Alliance partner TG for that matter — have a big European network; TG even serves Scandinavian cities like ARN and OSL that SQ can’t. In contrast, MH and GA have barely managed to maintain one European destination: LHR and AMS, respectively.
However, despite MH going through the worst year in its history (2014) which also happened to be GA’s best, MH has performed far, FAR better with its LHR route than GA has with AMS. MH has consistently had two daily LHR frequencies, whereas GA has chopped and changed with AMS — initially it went via SIN, then via DPS — and had to pull out of its own LHR service. See where I’m coming from?
this is the key point the two exist for entirely different reasons and run entirely different businesses. SQ is a global connector in line with any of the others; MH is a middling government owned operation that mainly serves Malaysian O&D traffic
Why compare SQ and MH? They have common origins - Malayan Airways. GA and MH do not.
GA already had a codeshare with QR for a while now, the reason why GA fly to DOH is because QR wants to add frequency but they already used all their slots at CGK so they decided to outsource that extra frequency to GA
@VT-CIE
Yeah, so desperately that you also had to bring false information about OZ 777-200ERs for at least three times, also misregarding JL/NH 767 status. You ain't fooling anyone here.
Hi Ben. Bit surprised you did not mention the recent weeks (and up to end of year 2024) struggles with Malaysia. Either in this article or in the last few weeks.
https://x.com/MAS/status/1829102583157534793
https://x.com/MAS/status/1827256393168253078