Malaysia Airlines is set to increase the number of flights on several of its South East Asian routes as well as services to Beijing, Taipei and Los Angeles.

In order to meet an expected rise in demand during the summer months the carrier has announced plans to expand its weekly frequencies on both its regional and long-haul networks from March 25 this year.

Changes to the airlines frequencies on its ASEAN network include:

•  The twice-daily return route between Kuala Lumpur and Manila will be complemented with an additional seven flights each week – a 50% frequency increase – resulting in 1,120 more seats in each direction with the introduction of another daily B737 flight. As a result, after March the carrier will operate 21 weekly flights between Kuala Lumpur and Manila.

•  The Kuala Lumpur-Phnom Penh return route, now operated with nine weekly frequencies, will be further increased with another two weekly from March 25 and another three weekly services from May 1. This will double the airline's daily B737 flights between the two cities.

•  The Kuala Lumpur-Jakarta return route will be increased with two extra weekly B737- flights bringing the total to 42 weekly services between the two capital cities.

•  The Kuala Lumpur-Medan route will be doubled with the addition of another weekly B737 service on Friday, making it two flights daily.

•  The Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok route will get an additional flight on Sunday between the two cities, increasing the service to four flights a week.

Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines will also be increasing the frequency of certain flights in its long haul network from March 25, including:

•  Operations to Beijing from KLIA will be doubled to twice daily – a 100% increase adding an additional 1,974 seats.

•  The current three weekly return flights between Kuala Lumpur–Taipei–Los Angeles will be replaced by four weekly return flights between Kuala Lumpur–Tokyo (Narita)–Los Angeles. This will result in a 33% increase in seat capacity on the Kuala Lumpur-Los Angeles return route. 

•  To compensate for delinking Taipei from the Los Angeles route, the airline added that it would instead increase frequency on the existing Kuala Lumpur–Taipei return sector by operating an additional three weekly flights.

The airline said that the added frequencies were in line with its new focus on the ASEAN region where its presence is the strongest.

The announcement follows the airlines move late last year to slash seven of its loss-making routes in a bid to “stem losses” and “stabilise the business”.

The cuts mean that the national carrier will no longer fly to major cities such as Rome, Dubai, Johannesburg, Singapore and Karachi, and have been implemented in order to help ward off heavy losses expected for 2011 and 2012.

Last November, Malaysia Airlines announced a net loss of $150.5 million for the third quarter of 2011, ended 30 September 2011.

Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, CEO of Malaysia Airlines, said that these route withdrawals should result in a saving of $69 to $95 million for 2012.