Malaysia Airlines has revealed it will suspend its flights between Kuala Lumpur and Brisbane from March next year.
The airline said it will drop the route from 27 March 2023 after undertaking thorough route rationalization analysis as part of its ongoing business review.
Non-stop flights operating between Kuala Lumpur and the other existing four Australian destinations – Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide, will continue to operate as normal, providing up to 43 direct flights a week between Australia and Malaysia.
Customers travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Brisbane will be able to leverage Malaysia Airlines codeshare and Oneworld partner, Qantas to connect from Sydney and Melbourne to Brisbane (BNE).
Making the announcement, group CEO of Malaysia Airlines, Captain Izham Ismail said the “difficult” decision was made to ensure it operates its fleet at an optimum level to maximise revenue as the airline faces strong headwinds from the continued increase in fuel costs, foreign exchange, and interest rates.
“Our forward booking to other Australian cities is very encouraging with strong demand up to and beyond the first quarter of 2023, and significantly ahead of the same period in 2019,” Ismail said.
“We remain focused on ramping up our network to achieve full recovery by 2024. To date, we have deployed capacities at 76 per cent year-to-date and anticipate ending the year with 82 per cent capacity of pre-pandemic levels network-wide.
“Australia has rebounded quickly and excluding the suspension of Brisbane, Malaysia Airlines’ Australia network will be at 98 per cent capacity of pre-pandemic levels by March 2023.”
The last flight on this route will depart Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur on 26 March 2023 via MH134.
