Following the reopening of Indian borders for scheduled international flights, Malaysia Airlines resumed its operations and looks forward to welcoming Indian passengers back to ‘Fly Malaysia’ and enjoy its full-service offerings. Amit Mehta, Country Manager- South Asia, Malaysia Airlines, in this exclusive interview with TTJ, assures that the airline is committed to facilitating safe and seamless travels so guests can continue to ‘Fly Confidently’ and experience a smooth journey, underpinned by inimitable Malaysian Hospitality.’
Prashant Nayak
India has always been an extremely important market for Malaysia Airlines and being the fastest growing economy in the world, it offers a huge potential for the airline. Since customers have been cooped up in their homes for approximately two years, Malaysia Airlines believes there would be a strong pent-up demand to travel again, especially to closer destinations, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore. In addition to outbound travellers, they also see many people flying to India from Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, and other countries.
Effective March 27, 2022, Malaysia Airlines started operating twenty-five weekly flights from India, including flights from five major cities, viz, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. The airline will continue to deploy a mix of the B738 and A330 aircraft on India routes.
Amit shares, “While we expect to see an uptick in outbound travel, we also have to be mindful of potential COVID-19 variants, which may derail or prolong the recovery. We are bullish for 2022 but remain cautious of the environments and will deploy fleet and network expansion opportunistically during peak periods to service high demand/capacity sectors.”
To enhance tourism to Malaysia from India, Malaysia Airlines has been working closely with Tourism Malaysia. With the borders opening again, they are looking forward to seeing good growth in their international passenger figures and rejuvenation of tourism in Malaysia.
Speaking about the passenger requirements, covid protocols, and caution the airline must ensure while operating in the Indian sectors, Amit says, “Currently, entry requirements and travel guidelines vary from one destination to the other. Malaysia Airlines is committed to facilitating safe and seamless travels for its passengers. We provide our passengers with necessary updates following the COVID-19 outbreak at its impact on travel arrangements. We have a dedicated page on our website that gives a complete download of the country-specific protocols and travel regulations. Passengers are also reminded to check the entry and exit requirements at the official countries or immigration websites before embarking on their journey. Malaysia Airlines will continue to ensure the health and safety measures taken across the traveller’s journey.”
The 7-star rating for COVID-19 health and safety measures from ‘Airline Ratings’ is a testament to the airline’s excellence in implementing comprehensive safety protocols. Among measures taken include aircraft operations by fully vaccinated pilots and cabin crew, mandatory use of face masks, frequent aircraft disinfections following guidelines prescribed by the Ministry of Health Malaysia and World Health Organization, and utilisation of aircraft HEPA filters that are proven to filter out 99.97 per cent of viruses on board.
“Additionally, in January 2022, we launched the MHFlySafe campaign that reinforces our commitment to putting safety and hygiene as the anchor across all end-to-end consumer touchpoints, beginning from the check-in counters, lounges, on-board our flights and through to the point of arrival, to ensure that passengers can continue to Fly Confidently with us,” assures Amit.
