Malaysia Airlines is launching flights between Kuala Lumpur and Paris. The route between Kuala Lumpur and Paris is scheduled to launch on March 22nd, 2025. Paris will be the Malaysian flag carrier’s 68th destination globally.
The OneWorld alliance member will launch flights 4x weekly between Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) utilizing Airbus A350-900 aircraft. The route is scheduled to move to daily service beginning on March 29th. Honestly, I’m unsure why Malaysia Airlines is planning to go to daily service a week after launching the route, let alone why they explicitly called it out in the press release.
Datuk Captain Izham Ismail, Group Managing Director of Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), said this about the new route:
“Our expansion into Europe marks a significant milestone for Malaysia Airlines. With the arrival of additional widebody aircraft starting this Quarter 4, we are ready to bring this long-awaited city back into our network. While the European market is highly competitive, we see tremendous potential for this route to attract key travellers, not just from Malaysia but also from neighbouring regions.
By launching direct services from Kuala Lumpur to Paris, we reaffirm our position as the flagship airline and strengthen our role as the gateway to Asia and beyond. This route will be served by our state-of-the-art A350-900 aircraft, which already operates on key routes like London and Doha, delivering a world-class travel experience to our passengers.”
Flights on the new route are currently on-sale with an introductory price of RM3,699 (roughly $850 USD. The route will operate using the following schedule and is blocked at 13 hours westbound and 12 hours 45 minutes eastbound:
Kuala Lumpur (KUL) to Paris (CDG)
MH 21 Departs: 11:40p Arrives: 6:40a (+1)
Paris (CDG) to Kuala Lumpur (KUL)
MH 22 Departs: 11:25a Arrives: 6:10a (+1)
The introduction of this route marks the only nonstop route between the two cities though there is a ton of competition between Asia and Europe.
Summary
It’s nice to see Malaysia Airlines expanding by adding Paris to the carrier’s route network. In recent years we’ve seen the carrier pull back slightly and become more of a regional carrier, the result of an extremely turbulent 10 years.
While the carrier has a monopoly on the Kuala Lumpur-Paris route, the South Asia to Europe market is extremely congested. I’m interested to see how this route performs but, either way, it’s great to see the airline in expansion mode once again.
Image courtesy Airbus and Malaysia Airlines
