Malaysia Airlines (MH, Kuala Lumpur International) has partially backed down on plans to completely withdraw its six A380-800s from regular service and use them exclusively for Hajj and Umrah charter operations. However, the carrier still intends to reconfigure all six aircraft into an all-economy layout.

The Malaysian flag carrier had previously announced its intention to completely withdraw the A380s from regular service. According to the ch-aviation schedule module, the carrier currently uses its A380s solely on the 14x weekly service to London Heathrow. It plans to cease scheduled A380 operations on this route on March 5, 2018.

After this date, the carrier planned to use the aircraft exclusively for Umrah operations to Madinah and Jeddah International. The A380s are supposed to be reassigned to a newly created subsidiary with a separate air operator's certificate (AOC) and reconfigured to seat up to 700 passengers, up from the current 496 in a three-class layout.

Australian Business Traveller has reported that those plans have now been scrapped and Malaysia Airlines will use its A380s on regular routes, mainly to London Heathrow along with Tokyo Narita, Seoul Incheon, Sydney Kingsford Smith and Melbourne Tullamarine, as well as for ad-hoc charters to Saudi Arabia. The carrier has later clarified to Flightglobal that it still intends to hive off six A380s into a separate company dedicated to Umrah charters but will also use them opportunistically on key markets during the peak season.

The reconfiguration is scheduled to commence after Q2 2018, Flightglobal has reported. The previous CEO of Malaysia Airlines Petter Bellew anticipated that the Umrah A380 charters will be launched by the end of 2018.

According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Malaysia Airlines' A380s are on average 5.6 years old. All aircraft are owned by the carrier. They will be mostly replaced with six incoming A350-900s. Malaysia Airlines took delivery of the first aircraft of this type in the beginning of December. The carrier previously has tried to sell its A380 but has failed to find a buyer.

The airline is also adding six ex-Air Berlin (1991) A330-200s which are scheduled to enter commercial service gradually starting in February 2018.