KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines will no longer use MH370 or MH371 flight codes for its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing-Kuala Lumpur route, out of respect for those on board the plane that had gone missing since Saturday.

The new flight numbers will be MH318 and MH319, said Malaysia Airlines in a statement on Thursday.

Malaysia's national carrier will still operate twice daily flights to Beijing.

Five days after the Beijing-bound Boeing 777-200 went missing, the massive search operations have still been unable to find any signs of a wreckage. The search is on-going in the South China Sea and Strait of Malacca.