Malaysia Airlines picks up market share
CEO says developments are encouraging in the wake of two air disasters
Malaysia Airlines Bhd, which has gone back to the aviation market after a two-year restructuring, is seeing a recovery in its share of the travel business by between 3 per cent and 4 per cent.
Chief executive officer and group managing director Peter Bellew said the airline has regained a higher percentage in some popular routes such as the Kuala Lumpur-London market.
“We have about an 8 per cent per cent market share on the London route and have seen a general increase in market share of 3 per cent and 4 per cent in other routes generally,” said Bellew.
He considers this an encouraging sign, given that MAS has had two air disasters in recent years and the aviation industry is highly competitive with low fares from low-cost carriers.
Bellew attributed the improvement in market share to an aggressive sales push, along with advertising campaigns, something that the full-service carrier had put on the back burner for a long time.
“We saw over the last few weeks that the amount of money we spent on advertising, we were getting back 10 to 20-fold more... it is a no-brainer, and in the leisure business, you have to spend money to bring in money,” Bellew told StarBiz in an interview.