Review of Malindo Air flight Kuala Lumpur Miri in Economy

Airline Malindo Air
Flight OD1650
Class Economy
Seat 22A
Aircraft Boeing 737-800
Flight time 02:15
Take-off 14 Sep 16, 09:15
Arrival at 14 Sep 16, 11:30
OD 36 reviews
Simmy1972
By 900
Published on 20th September 2016
Background
It has been a while since I last visited Miri, my mom’s hometown. In May, while chatting with mom about making a trip back during the next school holiday in September, we found a pretty good deal on Malindo Air.
Malindo once provided scheduled service between Kuala Lumpur and Miri, but had suspended the service, and recently resumed on 1st July 2016. Of the three carriers that provided direct service between Kuala Lumpur and Miri, Malindo surprisingly came out to be the cheapest option. Throw in the free baggage allowance, snack on board, and AVOD entertainment system, it was really not a difficult decision to choose it over Malaysia Airlines and Air Asia.

Check In
Malindo offers web check in 48 hours prior to scheduled departure. The system is fairly easy to use, and it allows passengers to select seats free of charge, a courtesy that gets two thumbs up from me. Once the formality was done, what was left was just to wait for departure date to come.
The weather was quite bad when we left home for airport at 4:30am in the morning. A storm that brought hail to some parts of Melaka was just beginning to die down.

A very wet journey to the airport
photo 1

Photo 2 (By the time we reach airport, the rain had gone)
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A rather busy KLIA terminal at 6:00am
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Queuing up to drop our bags
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Line for economy class check in is extremely long
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After breakfast at one of the many F&B outlets, we made our way to domestic departure hall.

Pre-flight and Boarding
My recent few domestic travels have predominantly been with Air Asia, so it was quite pleasant to be back in KLIA domestic departure hall. Overall, the surrounding was quite pleasant and not over-crowded. Our flight was scheduled to depart from gate A9, one of the inner facing gates in Concourse A.

Shops in departure hall
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KLIA2, Bunga Raya VIP Lounge, and the aircraft scheduled to perform our flight still parked at remote bay
photo 7

The issue with gates at the inner side of the concourse was that aircraft could only be towed to gate after all scheduled departures were performed, as the taxi way could only accommodate one way traffic. Therefore, our aircraft could not be towed until flights from adjacent gates had left.

Our aircraft finally towed to gate
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Ground service performed to get the aircraft ready
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Boarding commenced 45 minutes late at 9:30am
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Decent legroom
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Touch screen AVOD entertainment system
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Seat pocket contents
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Push back & taxi to active runway
Being at gate A9 and active takeoff runway of 32R meant we literally needed to taxi across the entire airport to take off. On top of that, we were behind a MH A333 and several MH B738 on take off queue.

Push back complete and ready to go
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Beginning of our long trek to 32R
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The two B747 that nobody wanted to claim
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Sepang F1 circuit in the distance
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MH A333 on its takeoff roll
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2 more MH B738 ahead of us
photo 20

Finally our turn to enter active runway
photo 21


Flight
Flight time from Kuala Lumpur to Miri was a short 2 hour. Weather was fine with occasional mild turbulence along the way. The touch screen AVOD entertainment system was turned on shortly after takeoff. It offered several movies and TV sitcoms. On top of that, there was also a complimentary snack service, whereby a cake, sausage roll, orange juice, water was offered. The movie and food kept passengers occupied, and very soon we made landfall and began descent to Miri from south. We landed at Miri Airport at approximately 12:00pm, a delay of 30 minutes from scheduled arrival time.

KLIA Satellite Terminal as seen from our takeoff run
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Lift off
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Entertainment system ready to do its job
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River flowing out to South China Sea
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Snack service in progress
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A rather substantial offering
photo 28

Overflying Riau Island
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Airbrakes deployed to begin our descent
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Flaps in landing configuration
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Baggage claim after landing and immigration
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Verdict

Malindo Air

8.5/10
Cabin8.5
Cabin crew8.5
Entertainment/wifi8.5
Meal/catering8.5

Kuala Lumpur - KUL

7.8/10
Efficiency7.0
Access8.0
Services8.0
Cleanliness8.0

Miri - MYY

7.3/10
Efficiency7.0
Access7.5
Services7.5
Cleanliness7.0

Conclusion

I am very impressed with the level of service provided by Malindo. Free baggage allowance, onboard AVOD entertainment, complimentary snack service, fairly new aircraft, and throw in LCC-like fare, nobody can fault this combination.

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