It is now too late for the government to step in and save Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and bankruptcy is one of several options to restructure the loss-making airline, said Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
“We have to look at it from all angles, bearing in mind that Malaysia Airlines is a government-linked company.
“It’s not a private company, so there are certain repercussions in what you want to do in terms of how it is received by the employees and the general public,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Previously, acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and Tourism Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz have both said on separate occasions that the government will not be providing financial assistance to MAS, which hasn’t turned a profit in years.
The state investment fund Khazanah Nasional owns a 69 percent stake in the airline, which yesterday reported that the MH370 incident on March 8 had a “dramatic impact” on its financial performance.
It suffered a net loss of RM442 million for the first quarter of the year, which is almost double the losses last year after adding almost RM195 million in operating expenses, KiniBiz reported.
However, the airline’s CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said it is still possible to turn the company’s performance around without a bailout or filing for bankruptcy.
“We know what we need to do to get the airline working,” he was quoted in the WSJ as saying.
MAS had confirmed on Wednesday that it is making plans for restructuring, and Reuters quoted insiders saying that it could involve a partial sale of the airline’s profitable engineering unit.
“We have to look at it from all angles, bearing in mind that Malaysia Airlines is a government-linked company.
“It’s not a private company, so there are certain repercussions in what you want to do in terms of how it is received by the employees and the general public,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Previously, acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and Tourism Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz have both said on separate occasions that the government will not be providing financial assistance to MAS, which hasn’t turned a profit in years.
The state investment fund Khazanah Nasional owns a 69 percent stake in the airline, which yesterday reported that the MH370 incident on March 8 had a “dramatic impact” on its financial performance.
It suffered a net loss of RM442 million for the first quarter of the year, which is almost double the losses last year after adding almost RM195 million in operating expenses, KiniBiz reported.
However, the airline’s CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said it is still possible to turn the company’s performance around without a bailout or filing for bankruptcy.
“We know what we need to do to get the airline working,” he was quoted in the WSJ as saying.
MAS had confirmed on Wednesday that it is making plans for restructuring, and Reuters quoted insiders saying that it could involve a partial sale of the airline’s profitable engineering unit.
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