Malaysia Airlines priced out

Marketing gurus would call this a classic case of a company being priced out of the market by not being competitve enough or not bothering to react to market changes.

In the United States, the Great Recession is wreaking havoc on the American economy and stockmarkets. Americans are broke. So what are airlines - already drowning in a sea of losses - supposed to do? Either drop prices to increase passenger load to ensure that operating the flight is financially viable or stop flying altogether.

Singapore Airlines opted for the first strategy whilst Malaysia Airlines went for the second method.

Yesterday's newspapers reported that MAS will suspend its thrice-weekly service from Kuala Lumpur to New York via Stockholm from October due to low demand.

The national carrier’s commercial director Datuk Rashid Khan said the last flight to New York from Kuala Lumpur would be on Sept 30 while the last flight from New York would be on Oct 1 and on Oct 2 from Stockholm.
“Demand has dropped due to the global economic crisis,” he said in a statement.

My sister who is married to a New Yorker was supposed to return to Kuala Lumpur around that time and I remembered during a Skype call recently that she told me she had already booked tickets.

Fearing that she would be stranded due to the flight cancellation, I e-mailed her the story about MAS cancelling flights from KL-New York.

She replied: "We are flying Singapore Airlines. They are having a special promotion whereby each ticket costs only US$720. I think MAS NY-KL costs almost twice as much....about US$1,300 - US$1,400.

That is why Mike is also coming with me for this trip as it's like 2 tickets for the price of one.
Maybe that's why MAS tickets are in such low demand.
That is also why we are coming back in October - that was the earliest we could get as all the NY-KL tickets on SIA were fully booked."

And we often wonder why SIA is the leading airline in the world....

Black or white (or yellow or brown)

"It don't matter if you're black or white..." - Michael Jackson, the late.

Someone told me the other day that Michael Jackson was a black guy who wanted to be white whilst Elvis Presley was a white man who desired to be black.

That got me thinking...

MJ's song Black Or White had a message about racism; the part about him wanting to be white was just a cruel joke even though there may have been some truth in it.

But the crux of the matter is that issues on race and racism are still in existence even today - even in US of A, that great bastion of democracy and freedom.

I remember when I visited some friends in Syracuse, New York State, the white guys kept reminding me to stay out of black areas.

They told me that in almost every city in the United States, there would be a poor part and the residents there would be black. That's where you have the drug dealers, the streetwalkers, the riffraff and, of course, a very high crime rate.

In other words, the bad part of town is always black.

I wanted to visit New York city and my friend's white neighbour, a former Long Islander, told me to keep to lower and mid-Manhattan, the safe parts where most of the tourist attractions are. If I were to head north, he told me not to step into Harlem because that's where the bad black guys hang around. I could go north up to 74th or 84th Steet - I can't remember which road - and that part of the Big Apple was still okay because it wasn't black.

The great nation called United States of America is still grappling with racism even though it now has a black president. I have not been to Washington DC but I was told that just several blocks from where the politicians release much hot air about race and other irrelevant stuff, the bad black boys hang out in the poor part of the city that no white politician would dare to venture to.

Back home in Malaysia, we are still grappling with racial issues more than five decades after Independence.

The newest Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has merely repackaged the ideals envisioned by the founding fathers of this nation into a theme labelled 1Malaysia.

Suddenly, 52 years after Bapa Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman had talked about peace and harmony amongst the Malays, Chinese and Indians and the numerous indigenous groups in Sabah and Sarawak, the great leaders of today's Malaysia have suddenly realised that they need to talk about peace and harmony among the various races. Suddenly it sounds like a broken record - we have heard it before.

Didn't Najib's dad, second Prime Minister Tun Razak talk about it circa 1974 when the newly-formed Barisan Nasional desperately needed to win back the votes of the non-Malays after the race riots of May 13 1969?

So now we have a father and son's commitment to repairing racial relations. Did the father succeed? Will the son fail? If the father succeeded, why is there the need for the son to blow the thick layer of dust from the concept and sell it to sceptical Malaysians again?

Now that the Prime Minister has placed the 1Malaysia concept at the top of his to-do list, his Ministers are suddenly parroting him. Then again that's what politicians do - follow the leader (for their own good).

They are mentioning the 1Malaysia theme in almost all their speeches as if racial harmony was not what Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Tan Cheng Lock and Tun Sambanthan carved in stone 52 years ago.

We shall see if Najib will follow up his words with deeds. We shall see if the old-new 1Malaysia concept will (as usual) be a lot of hot air.

Dying famous and young

Why is it that extremely famous and extremely talented people live extremely bizarre lives and die relatively young?

The death of Michael Jackson reminds me of the passing away of the other generation's great artiste - Elvis Presley.

There are similarities - both were great singers and had millions of fans around the world. Both died at the time of their lives when others of lesser pedigree would have reached their prime and started planning for retirement.

However, Elvis - who could thrust his hips like no other - was bloated and obese while MJ - who could moonwalk better than Neil Armstrong - was skin and bones and undernourished. Both were hooked on prescription drugs, but Michael had more plastic surgery done on him than most other Hollywood stars.

What is it about fame that it can turn a regular human being into some pathetic monstrosity? Despite the financial security of millions of dollars in their bank accounts and the luxurious comfort of their huge mansions, the chosen ones could not handle the pressures of extreme fame, the expectations of their fans and the fear of failure, and they collapsed in a messed-up heap of emotional distresss that no amount of money in the world could rebuild or repair.

If fame is indeed meaningless, why do hundreds of thousands of wannabes turn up for American Idol auditions every year dreaming of becoming the next Carrie Underwood or Adam Lambert?

During such times when someone as big as Michael Jackson dies in controversial circumstances involving millions in debts and lots of drugs, the media would go haywire with their reports and live coverage. This is one of the rare times when footage of a body covered with a sheet of white cloth on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance is considered "Breaking News" on CNN.

It is also during such times that we realise how fragile life is and how meaningless it can be and take stock on the road ahead for each one of us and perhaps adjust our priorities spiritually to attain some semblance of inner peace and sense of achievement.

Perhaps we should aim to amass treasures in heaven that will not rust and thieves cannot steal from us while we are distracted in our relentless pursuit of fame.

Remembering Michael Jackson

MJ has left such an indelible mark in the minds of the masses, expecially those who are now pushing 50.
Following his sudden and untimely death, the radio and TV stations have been playing his songs and music videos non-stop and the MTV generation have suddenly been reminded of the great talent that he possessed.
It is best to forget about the later part of his life when one was not sure if he was black or white of if he had been nipped and tucked too many times. And, yes, forget about all the scandals he was involved in, the bad press and bad debts.
It's best to remember him in his heydays when Thriller thrilled millions of fans worldwide - even in a remote corner of the world called Malaysia.
I remember a lot of wannabes from remoter corners of the world called Sentul and Brickfields who stitched sequins and epaulettes to their military-styled coats, hung chains on their pants, bought red or purple socks, wore white gloves, grabbed their crotches and sung in high-pitched voices as they impersonated the great King of Pop and moonwalked their way to some semblance of fame.
I remember standing in a square in Shinjuku in Tokyo sipping hot coffee and watching the Michael Jackson Billie Jean video on a huge TV screen on the wall of a building outside the train station. That was in the mid-1980s when the King of Pop reigned in Planet Music and everyone of us in the post-Elvis Presley generation hailed MJ as the great saviour of the times.
We thought he would be the Peter Pan of MTV and would not grow old even as we did. But he turned out to be as human as we were, as fallible and as fragile.
And now he is HIStory and reports of his debts, extravagance, quirkiness and dabbling in prescription drugs are spoiling the image of the entertainer extraordinaire.
Like I said before, it's best to erase from your mind that part of his life and remember him for his best moments - singing Ben, I'll Be There, You Are Not Alone, his fabulous dance moves and how he moonwalked smoothly into our hearts.