KELANA JAYA: Malaysia Airlines launched its MHmobile-flymas.mobi service - a comprehensive menu of mobile phones functionality available to airline passengers anywhere in the world - this morning at their training centre in Kelana Jaya.

Developed with SITA Lab, flymas.mobi offers choices and convenience  to the airline's 14 million passengers by allowing them to book, pay, and check-in and board their flight by simply using their mobile phones.

This mobile airline application also connects bookings to Facebook, triPlt, and dOPPLR ( social networks), enabling friends and colleagues to be informed about each other's travel plans. They can also check flight status and timetable using this system.

Another plus feature of this system is that if a bag is delayed, that can also be followed up using flymas.mobi to trace the bag.

"This system currently can only be used for domestic airports. However, we are looking at expanding to other airports internationally, such as Australia and the United Kingdom," said Malaysia Airlines senior general manager, Network and Revenue Management Dr. Amin Khan.

He added that Malaysia Airlines is confident that the number of bookings wil increase with the introduction of flymas.mobi.

Malaysia Airline's chief executive officer, Tengku Datuk Azmil Zahruddin, said the system is targetted at those who are on the go and suitable for someone who has an instant desire to travel.

"As for now, it is only available for advanced booking of 30 days and in our efforts to move forward, we are looking at longer term booking," he said.

This system is only available on Blackberry (RIM), iPhone, Android Google phone, Symbian (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson), and Windows mobile (HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson). flymas.mobi supports any screen above 128 pixels.

"We have no plans to impose any inconveniency for this sytem. Passengers who wish to use it will only have to pay their normal telephone charges," Azmil said.

Malaysia Airlines partners in this project are Maxis Bhd and SITA Lab.