Wau: Malaysia Airlines A380s

Published: January 2023
A big thanks to Aviation400 for providing me with these beautiful A380 models. Check out my reviews of this mould, which is the best for the type in 400 scale.

Ordering a Whale

The acquisition of Airbus A380s by Malaysia Airlines was in hindsight a clear mistake and, in the eyes of some, an act of hubris and a reaction to Singapore Airlines acquisition of the type. It certainly hasn't helped that Malaysia Airlines has been an airline in crisis, much, but not all, of its own making. Even so, the small A380 sub-fleet did provide the carrier with sterling service on the important Kuala Lumpur - London Heathrow route. In a sense, it was not the aircraft's fault that it proved a mismatch for the airline, however it is symptomatic of some of the travails that several A380 operators have suffered using the big Airbus that they couldn't make it work.
Malaysia Airlines order for six Airbus A380s was signed on Thursday December 11th, 2003, although in detail it was actually Penerbangan Malaysia Bhd, the airline's state-owned parent company, that would acquire the aircraft and lease them out to the airline. The holding company had only been set up a year earlier as part of a restructuring to takeover the loss making airline's debts and assets but by January 2003 had already talked of its intention to buy the A380s. The A380s were destined to takeover flying Malaysia's long haul routes to Europe - London, Paris and Amsterdam.
Initial deliveries of the Malaysian A380s were supposed to happen in 2007, but of course the A380 suffered extensive delays. In March 2007 there were reports in the New Strait Times newspaper that the airline would cancel the order due to the ongoing delays. Ultimately this didn't take effect even though the eventual delivery of the aircraft would still be five years in the future!

Delivery & Configuration

In the end it wouldn't be until Thursday May 31, 2012 that the first of Malaysia's A380s arrived on homesoil. As reported: "It was a major advancement in air travel for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) as it joined the elite A380 club." which perhaps goes some way to explain why Malaysia Airlines acquired the aircraft in the first place when it arguably could have acquired more sensibly sized Boeing 777-300ERs. Malaysia Airlines became the 8th airline to receive the A380.
The A380s were configured in a three class 486 seat configuration - a substantial increase in capacity over the 282 seat Boeing 777-200s they replaced on the European routes. They also introduced first class on these services for the first time with 8 seats on the main deck in a 1-2-1 arrangement. As stated by Malaysia:

"The seats have a pitch of 89 inches and are convertible into a full flat bed of 87 inches length and a width of 40 inches. Each seat also boasts an individual 23-inch in-flight entertainment screen with personal closet and stowage for coat, luggage, laptop and personal belongings. A granite cocktail table is located at the center armrest."

Livery & Service Entry

Picture
M Radzi Desa (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2 ), via Wikimedia Commons
Malaysia's first A380 arrived in a largely white scheme with just the main titles and tail logo added. The original intention was for the aircraft to be painted into a Oneworld livery (the carrier joined the alliance in February 2013) but this never took place. Prior to completion the aircraft even had the traditional red and blue Malaysia tail logo. The unfinished look would morph into a unique scheme as the unusually coloured tail logo suggested. It wasn't until June 26th that the full scheme was unveiled. The livery was inspired by the 'Wau' Kite.
Service entry for the A380 was July 1st, 2012 operating the Kuala Lumpur - London Heathrow service, initially only three times weekly on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. By August 30th daily departures were enabled with the arrival of the second frame. The arrival of further frames in November saw the start of Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo and Sydney using the A380, replacing older 747-400s.
Service to Paris began on March 1, 2013 but it doesn't look like the Amsterdam service ever received the type. By mid-March all 6 aircraft had been delivered.

Operations

Unfortunately Malaysia Airlines continued to struggle financially and the use of the large A380s didn't help the carrier already reeling from the impact of the loss of two aircraft in 2014. In July 2015 Malaysia announced that it would downgrade its daily Paris route to the Boeing 777-200ER from August 4th. Then in December a further announcement stated that the Paris and Amsterdam services would be dropped altogether. Instead the airline had signed a co-operation agreement with Emirates to takeover responsibility for operations outside the Far East. Passengers for Amsterdam would be moved to KLM's Kuala Lumpur service. The only remaining European route would be the twice daily London Heathrow service.
It was during August 2015 that I had the opportunity to sample the Malaysian A380s when I travelled with my family from Auckland to London. On the Heathrow leg of the service their and back I flew on the A380. The aircraft flown were 9M-MNB and the 100th A380 9M-MNF.
Below: My outbound flight to LHR was on 9M-MNB
Malaysia struggled to utilise its A380s effectively on this single route, which only provided a suitable yield at certain times of the year. In June 2017 they announced that the type would operate routes to Seoul Incheon and Tokyo Narita for the third quarter but the airline lacked a long-term plan for the type.
The fate of the A380s was only one issue facing the airline, which between May 2015 and the end of 2017 had three CEOs. The arrival of six new Airbus A350s from late November 2017 had meant that the A380s would be replaced on the London Heathrow service but Malaysia struggled to find alternative uses for them. The most obvious thing to do was to sell the aircraft but given the weak market for the type this wasn't possible.
In November 2016 the airline announced "Project Hope". The idea was to create a subsidiary to which the A380s would pass and be wet-leased to other airlines. The prospect of using them for Hajj and Umrah charters was also mooted including possibly changing the configuration to a higher-density two class arrangement. In the end this didn't eventuate either.
By December 2017 Malaysia had decided to keep the A380s in the fleet and use them to simply add capacity to existing destinations during peak season. That saw the type scheduled back on the London Heathrow route between July 20 and September 3, 2018. This decision came when the new CEO of the airline was a local veteran Malaysia Airlines employee whereas the previous short-lived pair had been foreigners. Arguably, although he would succeed in getting employee buy-in where the others had failed he was less likely to make some of the tough decisions.
Unsurprisingly the COVID pandemic finally knocked the saga of Malaysia's unhappy A380 ops on the head and all were retired in April 2020. Following yet another restructuring of the company in May 2021 the Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), by then the company's parent, launched a sale tender for the six A380s but unsurprisingly it didn't attract any serious interest. The aircraft were still up for sale come mid-2022 and Malaysia kept them in good condition by undertaking short 20-50 minute flights to and from Kuala Lumpur. 
Finally in December 2022 Malaysia sent its last A380, 9M-MNF, to long term storage in France following an agreement to sell them back to Airbus as part of an order for 20 new A330-900s. It seems unlikely that any of the six airframes will see further service. Ultimately the A380s proved a poor fit for Malaysia Airlines network and should probably have never been acquired, however I can't help but feel that a better run airline could have gotten a song out of the big jets.

References

2003, December. Malaysia to buy Airbus A380s. CNN
2012, May. The first Airbus A380 for Malaysia Airlines. flygosh.com​
2012, June. First Malaysia A380 Revealed in Full Special Livery. Luxurious magazine
2015, December. Malaysia Airlines to axe flights to Amsterdam, Paris. Executive Traveller
2017, December. Malaysia Airlines Backtracks, Wn't Retire A380s After All. Onemileatatime.com
​2022, September. Malaysia Airlines A380s Find New Owner. Airwaysmag.com