Malaysia Airlines offers an excellent first class product aboard its new A350 aircraft. Here’s a preview of my recent flight.
After a five-hour layover in Kuala Lumpur, we boarded the late night flight for Tokyo Narita.
The A350 first class cabin has only four seats (one row of 1-2-1) and I was hoping John and I would have the cabin to ourselves. The flight still showed F2 (meaning two first class seats for sale) during boarding.
Alas, a deadheading pilot and first officer were given the two extra seats. No matter, really: the two were quite pleasant to chat with.
The first class suites are narrower than the A380 first class suites on Malaysia Airlines. Still, the seats were nicely designed and extremely comfortable. Each suite has a closing door:
You can even adjust the firmness of the seat.
Malaysia Airlines offered excellent bedding, pajamas, and a nice amenity kit (not pictured). I slept extremely well for about 5.5 hours: I could not have asked for more considering I ate twice.
After takeoff, a supper was served. I had eaten dinner in the lounge a few hours earlier, but enjoyed beef and chicken satay as well as a bowl of cream of brocoli soup. It hit the spot.
I woke up about an hour prior to landing and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs followed by pancakes.
Note that the eggs are freshly prepared onboard (the FA had some trouble making fried eggs, my preference).
The service on this flight was warm and kind, but also professional. FAs were chatty, but attentive.
Lastly, the new IFE system features an excellent library of movies, TV programs, music, and games.
CONCLUSION
I’ll publish a full review in the next few days, but I wholeheartedly endorse the new first class aboard Malayasia’s A350s.
The presence of raw eggs may increase the risk of illness. One should always wash hands after handling eggs. Since fried eggs don’t seem to turn out well, I would be more comfortable with pre-cooked scrambled eggs.
That’s a huge breakfast. Those seats look awesome. Can’t wait to read your report.
That is one big breakfast.
How did you book?
It’s in post. 40K AA miles.
As in the full post will outline how to redeem? Is it 40,000 miles around Asia? Looks excellent!! I’m also looking at jal using Alaska miles for some cheap business class flights around Asia (eg Hong Kong to Singapore)
Who’s John?
My business partner.
Not related but does Alaska allow booking Cathay Pacific from JFK to Hong kong (Stopover) to Mumbai? I know JFK to Hongkong is usually bookable depending on space.
Thanks
Thanks for the reply Matthew. I am considering booking NRT-KUL for next week. You are saying that route gets Caviar? Your review was of the other direction.
It does. I know because the first class menu had both the KUL-NRT and NRT-KUL menus on them. If your email address in comment is valid, I can send you a picture of the NRT-KUL menu later.
That is my correct e-mail address! Awesome
Is the hard product similar to the DeltaOne business class?
Isn’t this just a Vantage XL seat with a door and (way) more pitch with a wider footrest? The seat seams awfully narrow for a first class cabin. I’ve only heard bad things about this seat prior to reading this post?
I’m a big fan of the Vantage XL seat:
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2017/07/10/review-sas-a330-business-class/
Aha, okay! I find them just okay (living in Sweden and travelling quite a lot of long-haul flights in C, I’ve had my fair share of those new-ish SAS seats) but would be extremely disappointed to find them in F, even with bigger pitch. Is the seats as narrow as a regular Vantage XL seat?
By the way, I’ve had sooo many flights with Vantage and Vantage XL seats with inop. inflation, leaving me with a rock hard seat without any air. Terrible. It’s been discussed quite a lot on a Swedish aviation site and seems to be a regular occurrence with SAS and other airlines with the same or similar seats.
My ” I’ve only heard bad things about this seat prior to reading this post?” comment was regarding the MH A350 F seats, not Vantage XL 🙂