Malaysia’s Firefly to launch narrowbody ops in 1Q21

Firefly (FY, Penang) will launch narrowbody operations in January 2021, initially connecting its hub at Penang airport with Johor Bahru (3x daily), Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, and Kuching (2x daily) each. “Penang is a great place to start because it has a great mixture of leisure and corporate business,” TTG Asia quoted Chief Executive Phillip See during a business conference. The carrier will operate three B737-800s transferred from its parent, Malaysia Airlines (MH, Kuala Lumpur Int’l). Eventually, it plans to add up to ten of the Boeing narrowbodies as it seeks to complement its parent’s operations in Malaysia. According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, Firefly currently operates twelve ATR72-500 turboprops. Its core business is connecting the Malaysian capital via Kuala Lumpur Subang with key regional cities, although it also operates a number of point-to-point routes bypassing Kuala Lumpur. For its part, Malaysia Airlines’ domestic network is operated in a hub-and-spoke model via Kuala Lumpur Int’l. The carrier has forty-seven B737-800s. Its regional subsidiary MASwings (MY, Kota Kinabalu) operates a network of regional services in the Malaysian part of Borneo using a fleet of ten ATR72-500s and six DHC-6-400s.