Putrajaya exploring sale of Malaysia Airlines, says Dr Mahathir

Chan Kok Leong Chan Kok Leong Updated 7 years ago · Published on 20 Mar 2019 11:37AM · 3 Comments

Malaysia Airlines has had a turbulent ride in the last five years and has cost the government more than RM6 billion in direct subsidies. – EPA pic, March 20, 2019.

THE government is assessing plans to sell Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAS) after offers came in, said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. 

“There are those who want to buy the airline. As such, we have not rejected (the idea of selling) and want to assess whether we should sell or not. 

“Although we have hired foreigners to manage MAS, it is still losing money. One of the ways (to turn it around) is to sell it,” Dr Mahathir said at the Parliament lobby today.

He said the offers have comes from local and foreign parties.

Dr Mahathir added the government is assessing the possibility of keeping the airlines.

“We have many aircraft that are not fully utilised and they are incurring losses.

“Personally, I love MAS and want to maintain it as a national airline. But it seems that we are unable to.”

He said the government had given RM6 billion to save MAS but the new management retrenched more than 6,000 staff members. 

“After that, MAS did not offer as many flights. This means that the reduction of workers made no difference. Reducing staff and flights meant there were no improvements.”

The carrier’s last known net loss was RM812 million in 2017. Khazanah reported a RM7.3 billion impairment cost last year, of which half was due to MAS. 

Prior to the privatisation plan by Khazanah in 2014, the government had injected some RM17.4 billion into the company. Since then, Khazanah has pledged to inject another RM6 billion. – March 20, 2019

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Comments

  • MAS is bleeding the country dry..it should be sold.

    Posted 7 years ago by Elyse Gim · Reply

  • Why Malaysian Insight putting this type of picture to describe MAS?

    Posted 7 years ago by SY L · Reply

  • Say no more Tun as it should have been done years ago, to us enough is enough and theres no pride lost either. Just sell it and not even a JV should be considered. Public funds could be well spend elsewhere.

    Posted 7 years ago by Teruna Kelana · Reply