“Despite the turbulent times, we’re witnessing a solid uptick in short-haul destinations”

Malaysia Airlines, the national carrier of Malaysia, carries up to 40,000 guests daily on memorable journeys inspired by Malaysia’s diverse richness. The Airlines embodies the incredible diversity of Malaysia, capturing its rich traditions, cultures and cuisines via its inimitable Malaysian Hospitality across all customer touch points. Now, with the skies opening up the travellers are busy planning their holiday travels to various destinations.

Click here to Register Now

Airlines are back in the limelight and are offering interesting offers to woo travellers. Malaysia Airlines has introduced various fare families that offer highly flexible and convenient perks, including free flight changes to encourage the tourist to travel hassle free on their airlines. The airlines are eager to welcome back travellers to experience their enhanced products and services with a range of flexibility and choices, offering convenience and  powered by digitalisation of the entire traveller journey by maintaining  all safety protocols.

In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Lau Yin May, Group Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer, Malaysia Airlines, speaks at length about their plans and touched upon their various promotional offers and packages, which will make the travel of their passengers very memorable and exciting.

With countries opening up to encourage tourism, what’s going to be the strategy for Malaysia Airlines to woo travellers this year?

Consumer priorities have shifted quite significantly during the pandemic. We have been aggressively getting consumer insights, and from there we segmentised the group of passengers that will be the first to return to travel to understand their needs. This allows us to then match their needs and wants with products that best suit our varying market segments.

With the uncertainty of the pandemic, airlines also had to take a different approach to passenger satisfaction – one of which was to allow flight date changes at no extra charge. At Malaysia Airlines, we have introduced various fare families that offer highly flexible and convenient perks, including free flight changes. For example, our MHFlypass ASEAN is a travel pass that allows for three return trips within 12 cities at a fixed rate within a one-year period. We also have MHshuttle, a convenient offering for travel between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. All these products were incepted with passenger flexibility at its core, offering perks such as no change fees and “Go Show”, which enables passengers to board an earlier flight. We also extended the 'Bonus Side Trip' programme to India, allowing passengers to add an extra leg to their journey and explore cultural gems in Malaysia at minimal costs. Ultimately, as a premium airline, we take pride in offering flexibility to our guests.

We also understand that our customers want a seamless, integrated travel experience. With programmes such as MHholidays, we take the fuss out of planning for their next getaway by providing a single platform for them to choose and tailor-make their holidays – including flights, accommodation, ground transfer services, as well as holiday packages. They can then use our Journify app, to discover new places, plan their trips and shop local favourites; all in one single platform. The Journify platform also provides the first-of-its-kind flagship experience through the Journify2U service, allowing domestic and international passengers departing from or arriving into Kuala Lumpur International Airport to have their products purchased on the Journify app with the option for their purchases to be delivered to them at the boarding or arrival gate.

We look forward to welcoming back travellers to experience the enhanced products and services with a range of flexibility and choices, offering convenience powered by digitalisation of the entire traveller journey, and keeping our utmost priority to safety.

What are some of the protocols you are following for safe travel? Have you reinstated all your flights from across cities in India?

Malaysia Airlines is committed to facilitating safe and seamless travels so guests can continue to Fly Confidently with us, in line with our MHFlySafe campaign of putting safety and hygiene as the anchor across all our end-to-end consumer touchpoints. We were the first to have our active crew fully vaccinated to provide a safe and comfort environment for our passengers, giving them peace of mind as they travel with us, and we still continue to mandate the wearing of face masks onboard.

The 7-star rating for COVID-19 health and safety measures we received 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 disinfection 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.

We are delighted to have also received certification for the “SAFEGUARD” Hygiene Excellence and Safety Label by Bureau Veritas, as it signifies that our efforts for safer and seamless travel meet international standards that are thoroughly assessed by an independent and globally recognised body.

On March 27, 2022, Malaysia Airlines reinstated its scheduled commercial services from India and currently operates 29 weekly flights from India from five major cities in India – Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai. We are looking at achieving pre-pandemic capacity back for India by the end of the year.

The pandemic has brought some changes in consumer behaviour. Are you noticing this in the travel industry and what are the likely trends one can foresee in the coming year?

COVID health-related rules and requirements remain a barrier fortravel. According to IATA, a survey conducted in October 2021 found that 73% of respondents who had travelled since June 2020, found understanding what rules applied for a trip and the COVID-19 paperwork that came with it was challenging to arrange. As borders reopen, travellers want simplified health protocols – where the current travel experience needs to improve with better information, more straightforward processing, and digital solutions.

As part of our commitment to offer safe, seamless and digitalized end-to-end travel solutions for our customers, we recently launched MHPay, which is a new alternative payment method for consumers to purchase air tickets, ancillary products, and services via malaysiaairlines.com. In collaboration with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) through IATA pay and powered by 2C2P, the full-suite payments platform, MHPay is designed to complement the airline’s entire array of digitalised payment methods by providing greater access to all payment options through a single integration point, and offers a fast and secure way to purchase real-time airline tickets online as well as through our mobile app, with no additional service fees.

Despite the turbulent times, we anticipate continuous improvements in travel demand as we are witnessing a solid uptick in closer or short-haul destinations such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. Customers also prefer destinations that either are restriction-free or have more relaxed COVID protocols and guidelines. 

As nations progress towards the full reopening of their borders, we must work hand-in-hand to simplify the travel process to take the hassle off travelling. Thus, Governments, aviation bodies and airlines must work hand in hand to facilitate and prioritise simplified, safe and seamless travel experiences as part of the ‘ingredient’ to spur the recovery of air travel and tourism.

The pandemic must have also affected your relationship with your trade partners as travel came to a sudden stop. How have you revived your relationship and what has been your strategy to pep them and boost their energy levels to perform?

We have an excellent relationship with our trade partners. We continue to work with them in deploying curated campaigns and product offerings to stimulate and cater to the growing demands in local markets. This includes joint consumer promotions with local OTAs to attract the leisure consumers; roadshows with Tourism Boards; corporate travel programmes through MHBiz Pro and MHBiz Plus, and other fare products to suit different traveller needs. We have automated our groups' process and group quotes, as well as payment / ticketing, which can be handled instantly at a click of a button. Travel partners (IATA and non-IATA) can sign up for the portal directly at groups.malaysiaairlines.com.

How do you plan to engage with your audience about your new product offerings?

Customers are our centre of gravity, hence a lot of what we do are based on the feedback we actively get from them. We will continue to develop our products based on feedback but there will be no compromise to the quality of our products. With hyper-personalisation – from identification of customer segments to product development and crafting of marketing messages on relevant channels, to using the right communication tools and platforms – we are better engaged with customers at the right time and place.

We recently unveiled the airline’s newly refreshed B737-800 NG aircraft, which boasts a premium cabin experience with truly unique features, including new seats, innovative in-flight entertainment – MHstudio, and refurbished interior that pays homage to Malaysian identity from the moment they board the flight. The cabin refurbishment exercise began in 2021 in response to feedback and suggestions received through customer surveys and various focus group sessions in 2020 to better understand the needs of our customers.

We are also focused on creating personalised products for different segments, as no ‘one size fits all’. Our products are tailor-made to fit the various travellers we have. For instance, MHBiz Pro and MHBiz Plus programmes provide greater customisation for corporate travel for SMEs and larger organisations, which includes features such as monitoring expenses and managing their flights via a dedicated portal. As part of the our wider digitalisation roadmap, the airline also offers a suite of products to provide a seamless, holistic and smooth digital journey for our young travellers through the MHexplorer programme, which offers discounts on flight tickets all-year round, additional baggage allowance, shopping discounts, and many more fun perks.

Loyalty programs are a powerful marketing tool to stay engaged and be connected with your frequent travellers. Have you revisited the same with some fresh thinking and strategy to give a push for your loyalty programs?

Traditionally, airline loyalty platforms were inflexible and focused mainly on air travel perks. It’s important for airlines to meet the growing needs of its customer base by looking at the entire traveller ecosystem, instead of focusing purely on airline activity. At Malaysia Airlines, we have transformed Enrich over the last two years from a conventional frequent flyer programme to a holistic travel and lifestyle loyalty programme, where members can earn and redeem Enrich Points, while taking advantage of the exclusive members-only offerings, lifestyle rewards, and priority service.

As part of the continuous growth of Enrich, members can now earn Enrich Points on bank credit card points conversion, hotel stays, tour bookings, car rental, fuel purchase, dining and retail spend with a host of lifestyle partners we have on board. We also recently introduced Enrich GiftCards, where members can use points to redeem purchases on renowned brands such as Godiva, Tumi, Victoria Secret, to name a few.

With the new online platform launched earlier in the year, members can easily gain access to promotions as well as earn and redeem Enrich Points when booking via Enrich Hotels, which offers over 400,000 hotel properties worldwide – ranging from boutique hotels to international resorts that suit every need and preferences. Enrich continues to have very exciting initiatives in the pipeline so stay tuned!