PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB) and Singapore Airlines (SIA) have entered into a wide-ranging commercial agreement, which includes the sharing of revenue on flights between Malaysia and Singapore.
The move will significantly strengthen the long-standing partnership between the two airlines, according to a joint statement issued today.
Other initiatives are the expansion of codeshare routes and joint marketing activities to develop tourism, subject to regulatory approvals from the relevant competition authorities.
The new agreement also includes SIA’s subsidiaries SilkAir and Scoot, as well as MAB’s sister airline, Firefly.
It follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding in June 2019, which aimed to provide new customer benefits as well as new business opportunities.
Under the partnership, flights between Singapore and Malaysia will operate under a joint business arrangement.
“MAB and SIA intend to coordinate flight schedules to provide customers with more flight choices and frequencies for passenger convenience.”
As part of the agreement, the two airlines also plan to offer joint fare products, align corporate programmes to enhance the value proposition to customers, and explore tie-ups between their frequent-flyer programmes.
Both parties will also expand their codeshare arrangements to include more destinations on each other’s networks.
At the moment, the airlines codeshare on flights between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Penang.
With the expansion, SIA and SilkAir plan to codeshare on MAB’s domestic flights and as such serve a total of 16 destinations in Malaysia.
In turn, MAB will progressively codeshare on flights between Singapore and Malaysia, Europe, South Africa and other destinations once necessary approvals are granted.
This represents a significant expansion of the existing codeshare agreement and will provide MAB with more opportunities to expand connectivity to and from Malaysia.
In addition, MAB and SIA have agreed to work on joint marketing activities to boost long-haul tourism to Malaysia and Singapore.
With the partnership, the airlines will also explore the potential development of airpasses, which will enable customers travelling to Malaysia through the Kuala Lumpur and Singapore hubs more choices to visit other parts of the country.
