Check-in baggage limits only for Paris, Amsterdam, says MAS

Malaysia Airlines says its baggage limits will only apply to flights to Paris and Amsterdam. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, January 5, 2016.

Malaysia Airlines' baggage limits will only apply to its Boeing 777 flights to Paris and Amsterdam from January 5 to 6 and not the A380 which plies the Kuala Lumpur-London route, the flag carrier said tonight.

The national carrier said it had been able to update its "risk assessment matrix based on new data received, which now allows certain aircraft types to fly a shorter route".

"This is the case with our long-range A380 aircraft to London which has been able to resume normal services.

"However, baggage limitations still apply on our flights to Amsterdam and Paris operated by the B777 aircraft. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide the necessary updates," the airline said in a statement tonight.

Malaysia Airlines had earlier imposed a temporary limitation on baggage allowances to its European destinations due to unseasonably strong head winds, which limited the airline's ability to carry baggage and cargo. 

Aviation analysts said they were baffled by the move.

"It's highly unusual and bizarre but that's what we've got used to from Malaysia Airlines. By their reasoning all other carriers in Southeast Asia heading to Europe would not be able to check in luggage, too, if indeed what they claim is true," Shukor Yusof, analyst with Malaysia-based Endau Analytics, said in a report by AFP.

"I've never heard anything more ludicrous in my 20 years in the industry."

Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at Flightglobal, described the airline's reasoning as strange.

"It doesn't make sense... and it's probably going to cause a lot of passenger frustration," he said in the report. "There are other ways to reduce payload."

The trouble-plagued company last month said it was investigating a Christmas Day mix-up that sent one of its planes flying in the wrong direction after it left Auckland.

The airline is also still reeling from the loss of two planes in 2014, including flight MH370 which disappeared in March that year after inexplicably deviating from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight path with 239 passengers and crew on board.

In July 2014 flight MH17 was blown out of the sky by a ground-to-air missile over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

In June last year the loss-making flag carrier's new CEO Christoph Mueller outlined plans to stabilise it, including 6,000 job cuts.

- TMI