This was the continuation of my journey back to Kuala Lumpur from Dublin. Malaysia Airlines flies between Doha and Kuala Lumpur twice a day in each direction. My flight home was the MH 161 overnight run back to Kuala Lumpur with a scheduled arrival time at 2:40pm.

The experience was overall an improvement over my outbound MH 160 from Kuala Lumpur two weeks prior. Malaysia Airlines proved that it’s a good enough option for long haul overnight flying, but there were still quirks that pulled the experience down as compared to other more polished airlines.

Transit and Departure from Doha Hamad International Airport

My inbound flight from Dublin parked at one of the midfield remote stands. Thanks to the airside road layout at DOH, this meant a long and winding bus ride from the aircraft to the terminal. I even wondered at some point if we were actually going in circles for laughs.

Unfortunately, my outgoing MH flight was set to depart from yet another remote stand, and this meant trooping down to bus gates C80-C93 for more bus rides around DOH. With the amount of flights departing from remote stands, the bus gates were chock full with passengers to various parts of the world. This wasn’t exactly a very comfortable experience for an award winning hub.

Operating my flight was 9M-MAE, 6 years old at the time of this trip. It’s a young plane, so to my surprise I felt a wall of stuffy air as I entered the cabin, and it appeared that the air conditioning wasn’t running on the ground. I suspected a problem with the APU, but either way it wasn’t a good look at all since we then waited for the next bus loads of passengers in the heat.

By this point it was past midnight in Doha, and half the cabin were already dozing off. The Captain came on the PA to give an update on our flight, only for the cabin PA system to blare the announcement loudly through the cabin and startling everyone. We then had to sit through the airline’s new and very musical safety video (YouTube link). I was previously ambivalent about it, but it was just too much at 2 in the morning.

Suffice to say, I’ve never been happier to get in the air even if 14 minutes late. At least the air conditioning started working when the engines came on.

Onboard Cabin & Amenities

Malaysia Airline’s A350s have the fleet’s most modern and premium cabin interior. A 3-class product is currently offered onboard, consisting of Business Suite (formerly First Class), Business Class, and Economy Class. All 7 of the airline’s A350s is scheduled for a refurbishment to install a new 2-class cabin to match with its new A330neos.

Coming off my Qatar Airways flight from Dublin let me contrast both QR and MH’s longhaul Economy product. You can definitely tell which airline’s is the more competitive and polished, and unfortunately it’s not MH’s.

Malaysia Airlines Airbus A350 Economy Class

There are 247 Economy Class seats in 29 rows onboard in a 3-3-3 configuration, with the first 3 rows offering extra legroom. The rest of the Economy cabin has seats with 32 inches (rows 16 to 25) and 31 inches (rows 27 to 41) of pitch respectively.

My seat was at row 32 with 31 inches of pitch. I felt the legroom was acceptable for my height, but it may be a different experience for those with longer legs.

Each seat features an 11-inch IFE screen, universal power plugs, a pillow and a blanket, and an adjustable headrest. In Economy, there are 2 power plugs for every 3 seats. Unlike on QR’s night flights, MH doesn’t give amenity kits in Economy.

My seat on this aircraft was in much better shape than my extra legroom seat on the outbound flight from KUL. The cushions and backrest provided adequate support, and I managed to have a decent night’s sleep on this flight. I still would rate this seat slightly lower than the Recaro seats used by QR – those are just more comfortable.

Malaysia Airlines inflight Wi-Fi

All of MH’s A350s and some of their A330s feature free inflight Wi-Fi, and was easily the best feature onboard. Activation is a little bit clunky as it still used the original purchase portal that MH used to charge for Wi-Fi, although you now don’t have to pay for it.

Speeds are pretty decent – it managed a download speed of 10.41 mbps on this flight.

Malaysia Airlines Inflight Entertainment

MH’s A350s run a version of the Select IFE system onboard. I’m happy to report that the IFE on my seat was running fine without issues, though MH’s longtime inflight Economy headphones continued to disappoint.

I flipped through the content, but it was very clear that MH’s IFE catalogue isn’t up to par with its competitors’ and it just didn’t have the same quantity of choices. I ultimately settled on The Post, which I’ve somehow managed to turn into my go-to inflight movie.

Onboard Catering

MH serves a snack and a breakfast service on this flight to Kuala Lumpur. After the lacklustre catering I had on the MH 160 out of KUL, I was hoping things would be better on this flight home. Spoiler alert: It was!

Malaysia Airlines DOH-KUL Snack service

A snack service was served 2 hours after departure. Like on my outbound KUL-DOH flight, this was a pastry puff. There was a choice of either a chicken puff or a vegetarian puff, and I opted for the latter and a cup of orange juice.

As before, the puff was quite a tasty snack, though I still wished that the box was designed to allow a grip without getting one’s fingers oily.

Malaysia Airlines DOH-KUL Breakfast service

Breakfast was a choice between a western option and a Nasi Lemak. I opted for the former, and it turned out to be something closer to an English breakfast – an omelette, a quarter tomato, two mushrooms, one sausage, and some vegetables. The meal also came with sides of bread and butter, a piece of cake, some cut fruits, and a cup of water. I opted for some tea to go with my meal as well.

The breakfast ended up being a highlight of this flight, as it felt fresh, tasty and was a great way to start the day. I don’t know who MH’s caterers are at DOH, but they can certainly do a good omelette!

Arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport

It was a hot, sunny day in Kuala Lumpur, and we had a great view as we came in for a landing on runway 14L.

Unfortunately we didn’t manage to make up the lost time from the delayed departure, and ended up with an arrival 12 minutes late. No harm done for me though, as my journey ended here.

Final Thoughts

This flight an improvement over my experience on MH 160 at the start of the trip. It scores decent marks as a standalone flight. But as always, the experience was let down by smaller (yet important) details. In this case, it was the non-functional air conditioning during boarding. I can’t imagine what passengers in Business Class and Business Suite were thinking as they sat through the hot and stuffy air!

Malaysia Airlines is a good airline to fly with, but there is no disputing that it needs to put in the work to be better.