Review of Malaysia Airlines flight Tokyo → Kuala Lumpur in Economy

05 April 2010
Malaysia Airlines
MH 89
Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Kuala Lumpur (KUL)
B777-200
9M-MRJ
Economy Class

Check-in for flight. The queue was long even though there were 7-8 counters opened for check-in! Flight was fully booked!


Off to the outdoor viewing area after check-in. Narita's outdoor viewing gallery was cool! But weather was very bad that day.

Another MH B772 at the remots stand waiting for flight back to Kota Kinabalu and KL later in the afternoon. ANA B773ER landing in the background.


Finnair A343 to Helsinki


Alitalia B772 just arrived.


Boarding gate


My plane, 9M-MRJ. Incidentally, this was the plane that went tech on my flight up from KUL.


Boarding. View of the 2-seater window seats.


Another view of the seat pitch. Note the generous leg-room!


The flight filled up rapidly and was almost 100% full, except the lone empty seat next to me, hehehe. How lucky can I be!!

Another leg-shot. See, I can cross my legs and I am 180cm.


Stuff in seat pocket. New magazine issues.


Inflight magazine and IFE controller.


At the gate and waiting for pushback. CX A333 beside us.


Pushback, engine start-up and welcome announcement by the female inflight supervisor. Yep, I got one of those fiery red ladies again!


Long taxi to Rwy34L. Passing the JAL B763 that would also be departing to KUL 30min after us.


SQ A380 at Terminal 1. My friend would be flying back on this plane 30min later. Interestingly, he mentioned that the A380 ride was so turbulent throughout but my B772 encountered a short period of turbulence and was very smooth thereafter. Probably due to the A380 could not climb as high as the B772 and also could not handle turbulence as well as the B772. The turbulent clouds were up to 36000ft that day. We only cleared the clouds when the pilot climbed to 38000ft.


Reaching the end of the runway. AF A343 taking off to Paris. However had to hold for another 5-10min as runway inspection was done.


Takeoff! Don't the jazzy boarding/takeoff music reminds you of the days when SQ still had them?


Climbing through bad weather.


Thick clouds below us.


Service starts with peanuts/drinks. 2 very friendly Japanese and Malaysian crew serving my aisle today.


Peanuts and apple juice. Each passenger was given 2 packets of nuts! The crew first came out with trays of oj/aj/gj (gj=juava juice), followed by beer/whisky water. No bar carts were used.


The fiery red IFS attending to a passenger.


Lunch service starts. Again no menus. Menu was also not flashed on IFE screens or probably I missed it.


Crew distributing meals. It was not my hands that were shaking, but we were encountering some pretty bad turbulence. Meal service was suspended for 15min after my row was served. Luckily the turbulence subsided after the pilot climbed higher.


The meal cart reaching my row. Note the tacky metal drinks container. MH, you can do better than that.


Choices for lunch were Teriyaki chicken with rice or Sesame beef with noodles. I chose the beef. Taste of food, B+. Presentation, C. MH, what's with the plastic-sealed main course? Bring back the proper casseroles!


Meal unveiled. Served with the main course were soba noodles, potato salad with smoked salmon and scallops, warm bread roll with butter. Also, MH appeared to be as stingy as SQ with drinks. No full cans were given out. Soft-drinks were poured from cans into plastic cups and served ala SQ.


Soba noodles, roll and potato salad. The salad looked depressing but tasted good.


Main course. It was good, but please bring back the proper melamine casseroles!


After meal coffee. Also to note, no metal cutlery were used. All cutlery were plastic.


Ice-cream for dessert. Meji vanilla ice-cream (which are sold in 100yen shops) was served compared to SQ's Haagen Daz ice-creams. It was good nevertheless.


Above the turbulent clouds at 38000ft.


Cabin view in the middle of the flight. Crew did come around with juices and water every hour.


Overflying some island in the South China Sea.


A refreshment was served before arrival. This is where MH performed better. SQ only served 1 meal on all their Japan-SIN day flights. Even TG also served a refreshement on their NRT-BKK day flights before landing.


Choices were a Ham and cheese sandwich or a Salmon Onigiri (Salmon with rice wrapped with seaweed). I had the salmon onigiri, also served with 2 mini snickers and green tea.


Cabin view again just before descent.


Descending and entering Peninsular Malaysia.


At this time, a really well-produced arrival video was shown. Something SQ could learn from here.


Final approach to KLIA.

We landed slightly late due to the late departure at NRT. However, I had more than 2hrs till my connecting flight to SIN and so all was well. Again proceeded to Plaza Premium Lounge, which was crowded, noisy and foodless this time round(all the food were wiped out by the hungry loungers once they were out).