Malaysia Airlines is reinstating some of its international flights during April 2020 and May 2020 to bring home families who have not been able to return to their loved ones due to travel restrictions in many parts of the world.

The flights are from Kuala Lumpur to Auckland, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney (and return) and are now bookable on the carrier’s website.

“Many customers from Malaysians to foreigners have reached out to our global offices requesting for available flights mostly between Kuala Lumpur to Australia and New Zealand as well as to Kuala Lumpur onward to London,” said Malaysia Airlines Group Chief Executive Officer Captain Izham Ismail.

“Being a network carrier, Malaysia Airlines is able to maintain connectivity and bring our customers direct or closest to their intended destination. And being Malaysia’s national carrier, it is our duty to ensure accessibility for Malaysia domestically and internationally during these difficult times.”

Since the enactment of the Movement Control Order in Malaysia, Malaysia Airlines has had to reduce its domestic frequencies and schedules, and it is running at minimum mostly to facilitate essential travels and cargo movement.

“Together with our sister airlines under the Malaysia Aviation Group, we support Malaysia’s Ministry of Health (MOH) with dedicated belly space across our domestic and international network and on MABkargo’s global freighter network for the transport of medical devices and supplies,” Captain Izham said.

“Most recently we transported two tonnes of face masks and personal protection equipment from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu as well as 300,000 pieces of disposable masks, 50,000 pieces of protection suit and 8000 pieces of protection suit with eye mask courtesy of the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur.”

He said in the next few days, MABkargo will be flying in more than 10 million masks and ventilators from Shanghai and Guangzhou, and this is made possible by the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA), Ministry of Transport and, Pharmaniaga Berhad.

Domestically, Malaysia Airlines, Firefly and MASwings facilitate movement of goods as well as medical staff across Peninsular Malaysia, crossings and within Sabah/Sarawak.

The three airlines have also positioned standby aircraft at Subang Airport, KLIA and KKIA to initiate rapid mobilization of medical staff and professionals as well as other (non-COVID-19) patients to support MOH’s capacity/resource management efforts across Malaysia.