KUALA LUMPUR: Brahim's Holdings Bhd's unit Brahim's Food Services Sdn Bhd (BFS) is poised to secure British Airways and two China-based airlines as its new customers this year as the in-flight caterer moves on from a painful separation from its biggest airline customer last year.
Brahim's group chief executive officer Mohd Fadhli Abdul Rahman said BFS had recently held a meal sampling presentation to its potential customers and it was confident of signing at least three new clients by end-2024.
The new airline customers are slated to fly to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Penang International Airport (PIA) this year.
British Airways has announced the resumption of its daily London Heathrow-KLIA flight from Nov 10.
"Life is tough because we had to let go of an important customer but until when would we want to be saddened by that occasion? Life has to go on and we move on with other customers," Mohd Fadhli told Business Times in an interview on Monday.
BFS' biggest airline customer was Malaysia Airlines Bhd, a subsidiary of Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG).
The company had previously served in-flight meals to all Malaysia Airlines' flights out of KLIA except to Tokyo and London. The in-flight meals on the two routes are now catered by Pos Aviation Sdn Bhd.
BFS and Malaysia Airlines separated after a 26-year turbulent partnership on Aug 31 2023.
The straw that broke the camel's back was a disagreement in their new service contract which has a "termination of convenience" clause that MAG added into the agreement to which Brahim's deemed unfair and disagreed.
News about the companies' separation was first reported by Business Times in June 2023.
MAG still owns 30 per cent stake in BFS although the latter no longer provides in-flight meals to Malaysia Airlines. Another 70 per cent stake is held by Brahim's.
BFS' current customers are foreign airlines which includes Emirates, Qatar Airways, Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Korean Air and Oman Air.
The in-flight caterer has a total of 35 airline customers with 28 being active customers. The balance has yet to resume flights to Malaysia and some carriers such as Philippine Airlines and Vietnam Airlines are doing double catering.
Double catering is when airline loads all meals for inbound and outbound flights at the first airport of departure. Usually, it is done for short and medium-haul flights.
Mohd Fadhli said BFS had added two new airlines – Air Macau and flydubai – into its list of new customers recently.
Air Macau started flying to KLIA in January this year while flydubai started its Penang and Langkawi flight services since February.
Mohd Fadhli said BFS would also look into providing in-flight meals for airlines operating out of Subang Airport provided that the customers would need such services.
Should there be a need for in-flight catering out of Subang Airport, BFS is planning to set up an assembly kitchen there to ensure a seamless service.
"It depends on what kind of customer that we have there. If all the customers are low-cost carriers, which do not really require food then what's the point? If the airline requires the service, then we're ready to set up an assembly kitchen and run the business over there.
"If we get into Subang, it's very likely that we'll have an assembly kitchen over there. Most of the heavy cooking activities will be done here (in BFS' in-flight kitchen in Sepang) and we will transfer (the meals) over there for assembly exercise," Mohd Fadhli said.
Currently, BFS' customer that operates out of Subang is the Royal Malaysian Airforce.
BFS runs a massive in-flight kitchen that is almost 60,000 sqm in Sepang. The kitchen now prepares about 10,000 to 12,000 in-flight meals per day.