KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 — Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia have updated their name entry guidelines for flight bookings to better accommodate Southeast Asian naming conventions.
According to the airlines, the changes aim to resolve confusion caused by names that do not follow traditional Western formats.
Malaysian names have caused problems during flight check-in in the past, primarily due to the unique naming conventions and how Malaysian passports do not separate first and last names in the Machine Readable Zone (MRZ).
This has led to confusion and errors when booking tickets and checking in, especially with airlines outside Malaysia.
Malaysia Airlines now separates names into “First & Middle Name” and “Last Name/Surname”.
AirAsia uses a similar format, splitting names into “Given Name” and “Family Name/Surname”.
The revised systems now recognise a wider range of naming traditions, including those from Malaysian, Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Thai, and Vietnamese backgrounds.
Under Malaysia Airlines’ rules, names like “Vincent Tan Ming Ban” would be split with “Tan” as the surname and “Ming Ban Vincent” as the given name.
Similarly, in cases such as “Foo Mei Mei”, “Foo” is the surname and “Mei Mei” the given name.
Passengers with names containing “Bin” or “Anak” must now place those titles in the surname field, as shown in the example of “Mohd Ali Ahmad Bin Mohd Abu”.
What’s in a name? Everything.
Especially when flying.Here’s the correct way to fill in your #AirAsia guest name✅👇 pic.twitter.com/DE8fIY61Cf
— AirAsia (@airasia) May 19, 2025
The changes apply only to new bookings, and do not affect existing reservations.
Source: 
Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia update name guidelines to make travel easier for locals
