How badly is MAS screwing us over KUL-SIN? RM75 MILLION a year!

CORRECTION: I forgot to halve the current MAS fare in my original calculation. Ok... so MAS' scam is not worth RM220 million a year like I estimated originally, but it's still apparently RM75 million nonetheless. And that's no chup change. Besides I've used AirAsia's quoted S$60 to as the comparative basis. Judging by the fact that AirAsia has tiered fares dependent on how early you book, I tend to think to think that S$60 is the max fare. So the real comparative basis is probably less than S$60. If so, MAS' overcharging would correspondingly be more than RM75 million as well.

After some promising noises from the transport ministers of both Malaysia and Singapore about the liberalisation of the KUL-SIN shuttle route by this year, MAS has the cheek to "convey its concerns" about it to the govt.

Just so that we, joe public, are crystal clear about how this affects us, here's yet another unscientific sean-the-man analysis.... of how badly we've been screwed by MAS and their ultra anti-competitive practices along this busy route.

That's right folks. According to my 'whack only lah' calculations (but I do reckon I'm not all that far off the mark), MAS' monopolistic actions over this single route costs the Malaysian traveller over RM75 million a year in overcharged fares (if we assume Air Asia's proposed S$60 one way fare represents the basic reasonable fare). Over 26 years, this amounts to nearly RM2 BILLION!!! DOUBLE that if we include SIA's 50% share.

DAMN! What a scam. This RM75 million a year almost single handedly fills up MAS' profit margin each year! No wonder they are scared shitless to lose this honey train.