Covid-19: MAS offers staff voluntary unpaid leave

Amid reduced demand for travel due to the Covid-19 outbreak, national carrier Malaysia Airlines Bhd joined the list of airlines to introduce cost-cutting measures by offering its employees voluntary unpaid leave.

Financial daily The Edge quoted company documents that stated MAS is offering all 13,000 of its employees the option of taking three months no-pay leave or five days no-pay leave per month for at least three months, starting next month.

The voluntary unpaid leave programme is also reportedly extended to employees at its parent company, Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) and subsidiaries including MAB Kargo, MAB Engineering, Firefly and MASwings.

MAS said in a statement today that the leave programme is in line with the carrier's reduced operations following a capacity management exercise due to Covid-19.

"To date, MAS has cancelled more than 2,000 flights up to April due to travel restrictions imposed by countries within our network," it said. 

The move followed an announcement by MAS Group CEO Captain Izham Ismail on Monday that a 10 percent pay cut will be imposed on its senior management as part of measures to lower operational costs. They will also forgo their allowances.

"The impact (of Covid-19) to the market is tremendous. People are not travelling. Businesses are not operating as they used to and the aviation landscape has changed tremendously.

"MAG is not spared from all of this," Izham said in a video clip to the airline's employees.

Since January, MAS has removed 7.1 per cent of its capacity. As for flights to affected countries, MAS has also cut its capacity to China by 53 percent and that to South Korea and Japan by 23 percent.

"At the rate and momentum of this crisis, more flights will have to be cancelled because there is just less demand in the marketplace," said Izham.

MAS' move was in line with a global trend by major international airlines such as Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, Lufthansa, Emirates, Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet.

Earlier this month, the International Air Transport Association warned that global airlines could suffer revenue losses of up to US$113 billion (RM481 billion) this year if the virus continues to spread. - Mkini