Cathay Pacific and Malaysia Airlines have decided not to move forward with their joint venture plans immediately after facing issues from regulators in Malaysia. Regulators have expressed concern about the possible lessening of competitors that would outcome from the partnership. Each airlines, which are component of the Oneworld alliance, intended to establish a metal-neutral joint venture for flights amongst Malaysia and Hong Kong.
The proposed partnership, which was initially announced in Could 2022, incorporated a variety of locations of cooperation such as income and expense sharing, price tag coordination, network preparing, schedule coordination, service and item coordination, as properly as joint sales and marketing and advertising. Having said that, the Malaysian Civil Aviation Commission (Mavcom) located that this joint venture would substantially minimize competitors in the Kuala Lumpur-Hong Kong marketplace.
Mavcom stated that each airlines are every single other’s major competitors on the route, and the removal of this competitors could potentially outcome in adverse effects for customers, such as improved fares or lowered service levels. In January and March of this year, the commission expressed concern about the reduction of competitors amongst these two carriers.
However, in spite of discussions amongst Mavcom and the airlines, no agreement could be reached on measures that would adequately address the commission’s issues. As a outcome, plans for a joint organization had been abandoned.
According to Cirium, there are at the moment 4 carriers providing flights amongst Hong Kong and Malaysia. AirAsia Malaysia has the highest frequency with 34 weekly flights from Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu and Penang. Malaysia Airlines operates ten weekly flights amongst Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, although Cathay Pacific operates twice each day flights amongst the two cities and an added 4 weekly flights to Penang.