MAS and SIA ink wide-ranging deal
MALAYSIA Airlines Bhd (MAS) and Singapore Airlines (SIA) on Wednesday signed a wideranging commercial agreement that will significantly strengthen the long-standing partnership between the two airline groups.
Subject to regulatory approvals, the national carriers propose to share revenue on flights between Singapore and Malaysia, expand codeshare routes, and participate in joint marketing activities to develop tourism.
The new agreement also includes SIA’s subsidiaries SilkAir and Scoot, as well as Firefly, the sister airline of MAS.
In a joint statement, MAS and SIA said flights between Singapore and Malaysia would operate under a joint business arrangement. MAS and SIA intend to coordinate flight schedules to provide customers with more flight choices and frequencies for passenger convenience.
“As part of the agreement, the two airline groups also plan to offer joint fare products, align corporate programmes to enhance the value proposition to customers, and explore tie-ups between their frequent-flyer programmes,” said MAS and SIA.
The two airline groups will also expand their code-share arrangements to include more destinations on each other’s networks. Today, the airlines code share on flights between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Penang.
With the expansion, SIA and SilkAir plan to code share on MAS’ domestic flights and as such, serve a total of 16 destinations in Malaysia.
In turn, MAS will progressively code share on flights between Singapore and Malaysia, Europe, South Africa and other destinations once necessary approvals are granted.
This will be implemented in phases. It represents a significant expansion of the existing code-share agreement and will provide MAS with more opportunities to expand connectivity to and from Malaysia.
In addition, MAS and SIA have agreed to work on joint marketing activities to boost long-haul tourism to Malaysia and Singapore.
Both airlines will also explore the potential development of air passes, which will enable customers travelling to Malaysia through the Kuala Lumpur and Singapore hubs more choices to visit other parts of the country such as Kuantan, Kuching and Kota
Kinabalu on a single ticket.
“Subject to regulatory approvals, the code-share flights will be progressively made available for sale through the airlines’ respective booking channels in key markets around the world,” said the national carriers.
SIA CEO Goh Choon Phong said in the statement: “We are very pleased to take our partnership with MAS to a new level. This will be a win-win for both our airline groups, and provide new benefits for our customers.
“In particular, the expanded scope of our partnership has the potential to provide a significant boost to the tourism industries in both Malaysia and Singapore, as well as the wider Southeast Asian region.”
MAS CEO Captain Izham Ismail said: “We are honoured to collaborate with SIA in providing our customers a more competitive product between Malaysia and Singapore and the opportunity to travel to more global destinations.
“This is in line with MAS’ long-term business plan of engaging in deep partnerships to extend our reach and presence globally. This partnership is more than a conventional partnership and we believe in the mutual benefits for both airline groups and countries.”