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 ...