Ascend Airways Malaysia is anticipated to take its first aircraft, LY-CHF (MSN 29057), in mid-March and introduce it to the Southeast Asian charter market, marking the arrival of a premium-cabin-only B737-300 in Malaysia.
KlasJet (KLJ, Vilnius), another Avia Solutions Group (ASG) company, currently operates the aircraft. Before setting up a dry lease for Ascend, KlasJet intends to transport the 27.3-year-old aircraft to Malaysia and sell it, the holding’s spokeswoman told ch-aviation. There are 68 seats on LY-CHF.
“The aircraft will support both KlasJet’s and Ascend’s charter operations in Southeast Asia for at least six months, with the possibility of extension,” stated a spokeswoman.
The sibling airline of Ascend Airways (YD, London Gatwick) is Ascend Airways Malaysia. According to ASG, its Malaysian start-up intends to use B737 aircraft to begin operations soon and then share capacity between Southeast Asia and the UK. According to a recent statement to ch-aviation, Ascend Airways plans to have a fleet of 15–20 aircraft on each AOC, with about half of the fleet switching between the two units.
A B737 freighter from another ASG airline will also be taken by Ascend Airways Malaysia.
With the founding of Thai SmartLynx Airlines (Bangkok Suvarnabhumi), Avion Express Philippines, and Ascend Airways Malaysia in 2024, in addition to the currently operating BBN Airlines Indonesia (0B, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) in 2022, ASG has been especially active in Southeast Asia. The last three are still in the development phase and have not yet started operations, but both anticipate doing so soon. Another off-season area where European ACMI operators are establishing a foothold in Australia is where the holding also purchased Skytrans (QN, Cairns) in 2024 – ch-aviation
