Review of Malaysia Airlines flight Singapore → Kuala Lumpur in Economy

Malaysia Airlines has been a carrier of choice for me this year due to the greatly discounted fares out of Singapore. A few months back, they ran a promotion offering fantastic fares to some Asian destinations and without much hesitation, I booked myself a ticket to Osaka for only around S$550 all-in. A fantastic deal considering MH also allows 30kg baggage allowance in economy! Recently, they ran another promotion offering tickets for an even cheaper fare of S$497 to Osaka! Sorry SQ, but with MH charging less than half of your ridiculous S$1.2+k fare to Osaka on similar departure dates and timings (albeit MH flights will have to transit via KL), I simply could not resist her! In fact for S$1.2K, I could have scored myself a KUL-KIX return in Business Class on MH, but I decided to save the money instead.

MH allows online check-in 48hrs before flight, which I was able to perform without much problems. On the day of departure, I rushed to the airport after reaching home from work and picking up my bags, to make it for the 2115hrs departure. MH departs from Terminal 2 and even though the flight this evening was supposed to be full, the check-in counters were almost totally empty 1hr prior to departure.




Boarding passes for both sectors were issued and I was off through immigration.




Departures were mainly to South and South-east Asia at this hour.




Some plane-spotting. Scoot B772 preparing for flight to Gold Coast. Silkair is totally dwarfed by it!




Silkair A320, Swiss A340 and Etihad A330.




From the sunflower garden: A range of SQ and MI aircraft plus the Scoot B772.







02 August 2013
Malaysia Airlines
MH 610
Singapore (SIN) - Kuala Lumpur (KUL)
B737-800
9M-MLH
Economy Class


Departure tonight for the short flight to KUL would be at F33. The gatehold room was already half-filled when I arrived. The incoming flight had just arrived and was a bit late.




An older 9M-MLH in old MH colours would be operating the flight today. Guess they needed the additional 6 seats on this leased aircraft for this full flight.






Boarding was called by Business Class, pax with status, followed by row number from the rear of the plane. It was all very orderly. Soon, I was entering the plane of the newest Oneworld member.




Passing the recliner Business Class seats, with pillows and blankets in every seat.




However, nothing on the seats for us seated at the rear. Some pillows were available in the overhead bins though.




Cabin crew assisting with bags during boarding. With MH's generous luggage allowance, not many passengers were bringing onboard cabin-sized bags. Thus the overhead bins did not fill up even though the flight was totally full.




At the gate.




Nothing fanciful with the economy seats on this leased plane. Legroom was sufficient though for this very short flight, and felt slightly more than the new BSI planes.






Inflight mag, safety card and airsick bag.




Boarding was completed very quickly and doors were closed. As luck would have it, the seat beside me remained empty even though the rest of the plane filled up to the brim! Safety demo was shown on the drop-down LCD screens and we pushed back slight late.




Tiger at the E gates.




Swiss A340, which will depart for Zurich later at night.




Lufthansa's whale in front of the Changi Tower.




We departed from Rwy20C for the 40min flight to Kuala Lumpur. Nice views of the waters off Singapore can be shortly seen after takeoff.




Making a 270 degrees left turn after takeoff and overflying Changi. Nice view of ships and the night lights of Singapore.






Seat belt signs were switched off very early and we were still overflying Changi! Service announcement was made.




View of Singapore. We would be climbing to a cruising altitude of around 27K feet.




As the usual MH short-haul service, peanuts were quickly distributed by a stewardess. This was followed by juices distributed from trays. There were a choice of orange/apple juices and plain water. It seemed that coffee/tea, and even soft drinks (I saw someone requesting a Coke and got the whole can) are available on request. I just had an apple juice with the peanuts.








Surprisingly, the crew came around offering seconds of peanuts after drinks are distributed! Great service!




Very quickly, the cabin was cleared and we descended into KUL. It was almost totally pitch black outside till we landed on Rwy32L.




Unfortunately, as our gate was still occupied, we needed to hold on the taxiway for about 10min while waiting for the aircraft to pushback.




Arrived at the gate at the Main terminal.




As the connecting flight would be departing from the Satellite terminal, I would need to take the Aerotrain over.