Malaysia Airlines is launching direct flights to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, commencing on 22 March 2025. The airline made the announcement at Malaysia’s largest international travel show, the MATTA Fair, with Inflight Editor Satu Dahl in attendance.
The Malaysia Aviation Group press conference at the MATTA fair
As a member of the oneworld® alliance, Malaysia Airlines currently offers connectivity to more than 900 destinations in 170 territories across the globe. Datuk Captain Izham Ismail, Group Managing Director of Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), commented on the new route development: “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.”
The airline also showcased its impressive new A330neo aircraft interiors at the show, including its the Business Class and Economy Class seats. In Economy Class, the aircraft features the award-winning Recaro CL3810 Economy seats. The Business Class will have Collins Aerospace Elevation Business Class seats, featuring an all-suite cabin with individual privacy doors, as well as wireless charging pods available at all 28 of the Business Class seats.
High growth
Inflight got the opportunity to interview Malaysia Aviation Group Chief Commercial Officer Dersenish Aresandiran at the event. Regarding which of the Malaysian Airlines routes are currently seeing most demand internationally, he noted: “Post covid, there’s been a significant uptake in demand. Routes with the highest load factors are Europe, Australia and South Asia. These three regions have some of the biggest routes now.
“UK and Australia have been fantastic. Also India – these are the three markets that are feeding very strongly into our network.
So, how does Aresandiran predict the Asian aviation market developing? “I think for the next five to 10 years, we can look at a couple of things – one is the GDP in some of the Asian countries. Be it Thailand, be it India, be it China, they all see fantastic GDP growth. Malaysia is also seeing very good GDP growth. So you can see the Asian countries are growing. That’s number one. Number two, you can look at aircraft orders in Asian countries. In India, in Indonesia….there are a lot of aircraft orders coming into Asia, right? And that will come in the next five years. So we see Asia as truly booming. IATA’s projection of Asia has been really strong as well in terms of growth.”
Malaysia Aviation Group’s Chief Commercial Officer, Dersenish Aresandiran.
Growth for Firefly
When it comes to Malaysia Aviation Group’s other airline, Firefly, how does he see the network evolving? “Firefly is our value carrier. It complements Malaysia Airlines. So Malaysia Airlines is very transient, whereas Firefly is point-to-point traffic. It’s all about domestic destinations. We started Firefly with an operation in Penang and Kota Kinabalu. Now we’ve just opened up Firefly in a city airport in Kuala Lumpur called Subang. It’s one of those city airports that offer point-to-point traffic.
“We have just started the Subang-Kota Kinabalu and Subang-Penang route. So, it’s a small airline, but with a growing network that we have aspiration to grow within what we call a pan-Asia strategy.”
