MALAYSIA Aviation Group (MAG) did not reduce its number of employees during the height of the pandemic, it said in a statement today.

Referring to an opinion piece on The Malaysian Insight last week, MAG said the statement made by a reader quoting MAG chief executive officer, Captain Izham Ismail, was also taken out of context.

MAG corporate communications assistant manager Norshafiza Zulkifli said MAG offered unpaid leave and induced salary reductions of between 10% and 50% among selected employee groups when the first movement-control order (MCO) was imposed.

“MAG wishes to clarify that during the pandemic, other than normal attrition and end of contract, there was no retrenchment imposed within the group.

“MAG offered unpaid leave and induced salary reductions to protect those in the lower-income bracket and to avoid job cuts.

“While the aviation industry indeed suffered tremendously during the pandemic and several airlines resorted to retrenchment to keep their businesses afloat, Malaysia Airlines was not one of them,” she clarified.

According to Norshafiza, MAG had recently begun rehiring cabin crew whose contract ended in 2020-21 and other operational employees in critical areas such as ground handlers, as part of its initiative to cater to surging travel demand.

In an op-ed published on The Malaysian Insight last week, a reader quoting Izham as saying that certain ex-MAG employees who were retrenched are now contemplating accepting when the group offered them a new contract.

The reader asked Izham whether he was surprised that former staff did not want to return to the company.

To this, Norshafiza said Izham’s comments made during the Aviation Festival Asia in Singapore were taken out of context as he was referring to the aviation industry as whole.

“Captain Izham stated that the aviation sector worldwide will likely continue to face a manpower crunch over the next six to 12 months, with the issues being more apparent in Europe and Asean, including Singapore and Malaysia.” – June 20, 2022.