Singapore's competition regulator has granted conditional approval for the proposed Joint Venture (JV) partnership between Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Malaysia Airlines.
Singapore's competition regulator has granted conditional approval for the proposed Joint Venture (JV) partnership between Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Malaysia Airlines.
In an announcement posted on July 7, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) announced the conditional approval for the JV following an assessment of the impact of the business coordination between the two carriers based in Singapore and Malaysia.
The JV between Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines – referred to by the CCCS as a “Proposed commercial cooperation” - would enable both carriers to enhance coordination on various aspects of their businesses including flight scheduling, pricing, sales, marketing, and other commercial commercial areas such as expanded codesharing and special prorate arrangements. It will not extend to cover Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines' Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) Scoot and Firefly.
While granting the approval, the CCCS laid out several conditions that both carriers have agreed voluntarily to carry out to address the impact on competition on the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur route.
Between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, both carriers will maintain its current weekly seat capacity levels (prior to the start of the JV) which can be increased upon meeting certain performance targets. The airlines will also have to appoint an independent auditor to monitor their compliance, and report operation data between the two cities using their LCCs Scoot and Firefly.
The CCCS did not disclose the weekly capacity caps and the requirements for service increases between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur such as passenger load factor and RASK-CASK (Revenue per Available Seat Kilometer and Cost per Available Seat Kilometer) margin.
According to aviation data company OAG, the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore route was the 4thbusiest air route during the previous year (2024) with seat capacity of over 5.3 million. Of the over 260 weekly on-way flights operated on the route in April 2025, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines operated a combined 111 weekly flights (Malaysia Airlines – 64/Singapore Airlines – 47). Combined, both carriers operate 42% of the weekly seat capacity on the route (Malaysia Airlines – 11,136/Singapore Airlines 10,265). In terms of ASM for airline groups, both carriers are the #2 and #3 carriers on the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur route (Singapore Airlines Group including Scoot – 42 million/Malaysia Aviation Group – 33 million).
In its statement, the CCCS considered the proposed commitments by Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines amid the upcoming closure of Jetstar Asia.
“Taking market developments into account, including the impending permanent cessation by Jetstar Asia Airways Pte Ltd, CCCS accepted the Proposed Commitments as being sufficient to address its competition concerns arising from the Proposed Cooperation,” the CCCS said.
“CCCS will continue to monitor developments in this sector to ensure that competition can yield good outcomes for consumers,” the CCCS concluded.
The Joint Venture will expand the partnership between Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines, which were once parts of one airline serving Singapore and Malaysia – Malaysia-Singapore Airlines (MSA) – until they separated into their own companies in 1972. After a previous application in October 2019 and approval in 2022, a new application was filed by both carriers after the market “sufficiently recovered” from the COVID-19 pandemic. The most recent approval is for the application filed in March 2023. It was updated in November 2023 limiting the partnership to the two full-service carriers.
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