I flew Malaysia Airlines MH123 on the redeye flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney in April 2024. The business class ticket was booked using Cathay Pacific Asia Miles as part of my journey from Singapore to Sydney via Kuala Lumpur.

Before the flight

I landed at the main terminal, and since it was a transit flight, I looked for the gates to the BMW i7 private transfer service. It was pretty late, and there was only one car available. I was asked if I wanted to share the ride with another passenger, which I obliged.

This transfer service is exclusive to Malaysia Airlines passengers only. If you’re flying business class on another airline, you won’t be able to use this service and instead, it will be a bus ride (though separate from regular passengers). I also had access to the Malaysia Airlines Golden Lounge at the satellite terminal before boarding.

The seats

I reserved seat 1D, a bulkhead seat. Malaysia Airlines operates the A330-300 in either an alternate 1-2-1 or 1-2-2 business class layout.

There are a total of 27 seats on this plane, and they are the Thomson Aero Vantage seats, which can also be found on several other airlines. It’s fully lie-flat too, and comes with a pillow, blanket and a mattress pad already on the seat.

Once boarding was completed, the air stewardesses distributed amenity kits made by Aspinal of London, which contained Payot products, and I thought the amenity kit felt quite premium.

The bed was also easy to set up on your own without much help required. I had a very good rest on this flight, so I didn’t really use much of the in-flight entertainment as I felt it was quite dated.

Food and drinks

Service was reduced as expected, given this is a redeye flight. The meal started with a classic satay service where you could choose beef, chicken, or both. It was served with peanut sauce, cucumber, and onion slices. It was definitely one of the better in-flight snacks, maybe even better than the ones served onboard Singapore Airlines flights too!

You can always check out the menu online if you want to see the full options. There were light bites and snacks available like egg noodles, chicken sandwiches, or even goreng pisang (fried banana fritters), but I skipped those and took the opportunity to get some sleep instead.

Before landing, breakfast was served around 5 am. I went with the minute steak option, which was okay but probably too heavy for a morning meal.

Concluding thoughts

Overall, this was a decent flight, especially considering I booked it using Asia Miles for slightly fewer miles than what you can find on other frequent flyer programmes. Finding award availability on Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer for this route is tough, so this was a solid alternative.