Malaysia Airlines has seen a 40 per cent increase in business class passengers flying its London Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur route this year.
The upturn in corporate traffic was measured between January 1 and August 31 and compared to the same period last year.
The news comes despite the disappearance of flight MH370 over the Indian Ocean in March and the tragic shootdown of MH17 over Ukraine four months later (see news, July 17).
Weng Chi Lee, MAS' UK & Ireland area manager, told Business Traveller: "The corporate travel market never took a dip. That was very reassuring. We saw our business class passenger loads [on the London to Kuala Lumpur route]... increase 40 per cent, year-on-year."
He added: "We've got a good product — it's a double-daily A380 with first, business and economy class. We continue to refresh our products all the time. The corporate travellers are receptive to what we have and they find that it's a good way to go out to Asia."
Although business class travel is up by 40 per cent, the airline's overall traffic between LHR and Kuala Lumpur has decreased by 5 per cent from 85 to 80 per cent.
Two weeks ago, MAS became a step closer to becoming a nationalised private company after minority shareholders voted to approve Khazanah Nasional, the investment holding arm of the Malaysian government, becoming the sole shareholder (see news, November 6).
Once approved by the High Court of Malaya, Khazanah will implement a 12-point, five-year business plan setting out strategies to rehabilitate the airline. The first move will be a reduction in staff from 20,000 to an estimated 14,000.
Despite the cutback in personnel, which is expected to mainly affect back-office staff, MAS currently has no plans to axe any of its routes.
Lee said: "The double-daily A380 operation between Heathrow and Kuala Lumpur is assured, it's staying... And it's not just the UK, the entire European as well as our worldwide network are staying the same for the time being."
Graham Smith
