'We started from nothing' - MAS retirees offer to revive company

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) retirees are offering to help revive the ailing national carrier, pointing out that some of them had in the past built the airline from nothing.

"When some of us started back in the early 70s, we started with virtually nothing. This airline was built from scratch. We didn't have pilots, engineers, or even cabin crew.

"However, over the past four decades, we created a core of pilots, cabin crew and airline business executives who even went on to help establish various global airlines in India, the Middle East and the Far East," Malaysia Airlines Retirees Association (Masra) told a press conference in Petaling Jaya today.

In a joint statement between Masra patron Abdul Aziz Abd Rahman and president Abdul Razak Hashim, they said the ex-staff and retirees are saddened to see a golden national asset in the condition it is today.

"We are here today to offer our services to help resurrect this global icon for all Malaysians to bask in the pride of the famous golden service," they said.

They attributed MAS' decline to decisions made around a decade ago.

"The national flag bearer is facing a serious threat. The key elements that exacerbate this situation were the rampant shut down of a valuable global network between 2005 and 2008.

"Further, the rampant voluntary separation scheme (VSS) of key technical staff, engineers and pilots at the same time period made this seriously untenable," they said.

Masra's statement came amid the government's evaluation of the future of MAS.

Addressing journalists later, Abdul Aziz Abd Rahman said it would be an embarrassment if MAS was closed down.

"Almost every country in the world... they have their own national carrier. If you want to close it, I think I will feel ashamed. I don't know where to put my face," he said.

MAS, which was already struggling, suffered twin blows when two of its aeroplanes crashed in 2014.

Flight MH370 was never found, while Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine where Russian-backed rebels were engaged in fighting with the Ukraine government.

MAS was subsequently delisted and taken over by state sovereign fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad as part of a rescue plan.

Khazanah injected some RM3 billion into MAS, which it had to write-off as MAS struggled to recover.

The write-off, which made up around half of Khazanah's losses in 2018, dragged the sovereign wealth fund into the red. - Mkini