Cathay Pacific and Malaysia Airways have determined to not transfer ahead with their plans for a joint-business after going through issues from regulators in Malaysia. The regulators expressed fear over the potential discount in competitors that might consequence from the partnership. Each airways, that are a part of the Oneworld alliance, had supposed to ascertain a metal-neutral joint enterprise for flights between Malaysia and Hong Kong.

The proposed partnership, which was initially introduced in Might 2022, included numerous areas of cooperation reminiscent of income and cost-sharing, pricing coordination, community planning, schedule coordination, service and product coordination, in addition to joint gross sales and advertising. Nonetheless, the Malaysian Aviation Fee (Mavcom) discovered that this joint enterprise would considerably lower competitors within the Kuala Lumpur-Hong Kong market.

Mavcom acknowledged that each airways are one another’s major opponents on the route, and eradicating this competitors might probably lead to damaging results for shoppers, reminiscent of elevated costs or lowered service ranges. In January and March of this 12 months, the fee expressed its issues to the 2 carriers concerning the discount in competitors.

Sadly, regardless of discussions between Mavcom and the airways, an settlement couldn’t be reached on measures that might adequately tackle the fee’s issues. Consequently, the plans for the joint enterprise have been deserted.

In response to Cirium schedules knowledge, there are at the moment 4 carriers providing flights between Hong Kong and Malaysia. AirAsia Malaysia has the best frequency with 34 weekly flights from Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, and Penang. Malaysia Airways operates 10 weekly flights between Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, whereas Cathay Pacific operates twice-daily flights between the 2 cities and a further 4 weekly flights to Penang.