Malaysian Airline System (MAS) plan to almost double its Asia-Pacific network in three years as it executes its turnaround plan.
Some 25 new destinations in China, Japan and India are planned by 2015, compared with 13 regional destinations now. Frequencies on existing routes will also be increased.
Chairman Md Nor Yusof said: “The airline business is closely linked to the economic cycle and there is a consensus that the Asia-Pacific region is the bright spot. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic.”
The latest turnaround plan will be announced later this week and it is expected to require some redundancies.
MAS will keep its current orderbook, Md Nor confirmed last week. The carrier took delivery of its first of six A380s last month and will commence services with the aircraft from July 1.
MAS hopes to finance the A380 and A330 deliveries will a sale-leaseback deal provided by the Malaysian government, although talks are continuing with the Finance Ministry.
Despite the cancellation of the Share Swap deal with AirAsia, Malaysian Air will continue to cooperate with the airline in areas such as procurement, aircraft maintenance and training.