Airbus's Superjumbo finds new life on Malaysia Air pilgrim trips

Malaysia Airlines’ Airbus SE A380s are flying full on trial services taking Muslim pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, prompting the carrier to say it will establish the operation as a new division as early as the end of this year. The company has been using two of its six A380s to transport people headed to Mecca for the year-round Umrah pilgrimage since November, CEO Izham Ismail said. The planes will ultimately be used for the annual Hajj gathering, one of the world’s biggest travel events. “I felt we needed to go to market fast,” said Ismail, who inherited the proposal when he took over as CEO two months ago. “We’ve been flying these charters daily to Jeddah or Medina and we fill them up every day.” Airbus, which broke a two-year sales drought with the A380 last week, is keen to see the Malaysia plan succeed as it pitches the model for new markets, and has agreed to convert the jets to as many as 700 seats from 498. Ismail said that would have to wait until 2020, when the A380s will be out of service for maintenance, and that the current density may in any case be sufficient. “The passengers who go to the Umrah and Hajj are often elderly, so we can’t cram them into a tin can,” he said. “We can keep the current configuration and offer a product that’s superior to the current Hajj product. It’s a captive market, so we can move the pricing up a little bit.” While flying to Saudi Arabia from Kuala Lumpur, the A380s have already carried groups originating in Indonesia, China and Bangladesh, as well as Malaysia, booked via a network of travel agents. Fares will still be lower than for a normal commercial ticket, though there’s an appetite for business-class perks among some pilgrims that the current layout could address, Ismail said. The project, a brainchild of Ismail’s predecessor Peter Bellew, has been named Amal, meaning “hope” in Arabic.<br/>