Time to sell Malaysia Airlines to the highest bidder

 

I probably shouldn’t join the crowd piling on to Malaysia Airlines’ latest misery. After all, there’s guaranteed to be another miserable episode down the road soon.

But then, where’s the fun in that! Let’s kick a guy when he’s down! It’s the Malaysian way.

Anyway, civil aviation was a highly nationalistic and protected field years ago, when the air was crowded with national flag carriers, and ominous stuff like 

fifth freedom flights

 and such, which by the way had nothing to do with Star Wars.

However, the worst days of protectionism are mostly over. Many of the national carriers, including grand old names such as British Airways, Lufthansa, etc, are no longer state-owned.

For other state-owned flag carriers, their existence is often a series of regular near-death experiences punctuated by huge government bailouts.

Among such carriers are venerable names such as Japan Airlines, Thai Airways, Air India, and of course our very own Malaysia Airlines.

There are a few exceptions certainly, including Singapore International Airlines (SIA), the flag carrier of our neighbour down south. Others are the national airlines of the oil-rich nations of the Persian Gulf.

Some of these Gulf airlines dominate international air travel to such an extent that even the Americans, supposedly free-market advocates, get conniptions.

Emirates example

Let’s be clear though about how such airlines, especially Emirates, have flourished.

When Emirates was set up, its main objective wasn’t just to serve the people of Dubai, a territory not even the size of Negeri Sembilan, one that certainly didn’t need air travel.

It was to help turn Dubai into a global city by making it a critical aviation hub, Dubai being located on the lucrative Kangaroo Route connecting Europe to Australia.

It didn’t hurt to have a pragmatic government willing to put the best people possible in charge. Tim Clark, a Brit who is the long-time president of Emirates, has run the airline so well he’s now an icon in the industry, whose word can shake the halls of Airbus and Boeing.

I met a senior leader of Emirates many years ago who told me that 96% of Emirates staff were expatriates. This is one example of the pragmatism I’m talking about.

Most of these staff do the boring but necessary work such as handling customers, whether on the ground or in the air.

Role of engineers

However, there are many – and in this group there are many Malaysians – who do the critical job of flying and perhaps the even more critical engineering job of keeping the aircraft flying.

It’s often said that engineers own the aircraft, and only reluctantly lend them to the pilots. Engineers are certainly the key players in the latest saga in the chronicles of Malaysian aviation

Malaysia Airlines recently lost a large number of engineering staff to newly-set up aviation engineering operations, including some owned by rivals such as SIA.

Unsurprisingly this explains the hysterical claims of sabotage by politicians opposed to the decision to allow such businesses to be set up in Malaysia.

On govt ownership

A more important topic, however, is whether we should even keep Malaysia Airlines as a government-owned company at all.

My simple answer: No.

Malaysia Airlines has been a political football for decades, with its most infamous episode being the privatisation of MAS to political cronies in 1994.

That failed spectacularly, though the cronies involved didn’t suffer too badly. They got back their money – our money actually – in spite of being absolute failures.

Since then, the amount of taxpayers money thrown into this bottomless pit has run to over RM28 billion, or almost a thousand ringgit for each of Malaysia’s citizens.

Too many parasites

What have we got for the money? A stumbling and failing airline that, as regular as clockwork, needs more bailouts.

In Malaysia’s corrupt and toxic political environment, the chances of Malaysia Airlines succeeding come up to zero. There are too many parasites – cronies and the privileged elites – who will fight to protect their interest in feeding off the airline.

I’m not talking about the staff, even if their number, motivation and even their skills and qualifications are in question.

I’m not a big fan of the narrative of how great Malaysia Airlines used to be in the Good Old Days. You can’t really compare the time when aviation was less of a cut-throat business and more of a jealously-protected and often nationalised industry.

A breed apart

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But since those days, it has certainly been a dismal failure. Losing so many trained and critical engineers at one go is but the latest of its debilitating mishaps.

Aircraft engineers are a breed apart. They don’t come from universities but are rigorously trained until they get to hold the coveted rank of licensed aircraft engineer, at which point the whole world is their oyster.

That MAS still had so many of such engineers who hadn’t gone to work elsewhere is a miracle by itself.

Malaysia has so many good things going for it. Our aviation professionals are highly respected. We have a huge airport in Kuala Lumpur International Airport which has something that many other airports lack – excess capacity. We now also have Subang airport, finally waking up from its slumber.

The priorities

What Malaysia should care about is to have safe, affordable air travel provided by private, competitive Malaysian companies such as AirAsia, the largest low-cost carrier in Asia, with a track record of over two decades.

In AirAsia’s early days, there was some help from the government, but it’s nothing compared to what Malaysia Airlines got. Although AirAsia is still suffering from the Covid hangover, and occasionally shoot themselves in the foot, at least their finances are not our problem.

So, sell Malaysia Airlines to the highest bidder who’s prepared to run it as a viable business. Make one last generous gift to make sure the staff who may be laid off are fairly treated. That’ll still be cheaper than the never-ending bailouts.

Let the new owners deal with the parasites and cronies and hangers-on. We shouldn’t have to care as it will no longer be our money they’re feasting on.

Foreign companies setting up operations here invest hundreds of millions of ringgit and employ many Malaysians. Sure, they’ll repatriate their profits, but they can’t just close shop and leave. They need us as much as we need them.

We should be less concerned about having a failing national flag carrier and be more concerned about creating an aviation-friendly business environment that can attract investments and create jobs.

Pragmatic outlook

Look at how we wasted billions to create a national car, whereas Thailand didn’t bother but created a national car industry that now employs close to a million workers and is among the top 10 car exporters in the world.

Be like the Thais – keep our fragile egos in check and focus on what’s really important: to give the rakyat affordable and safe air travel; bring in even more tourists and transit passengers; and create centres of excellence for the aviation industry.

For this to happen, we need to get over this silly and expensive pride about a national flag carrier, a pride that many other nations have got over years ago.

Over the last few decades, there hasn’t been much to be proud of with our flag carrier, while there has been plenty to be angry and ashamed of.

Every single ringgit that goes to prop up Malaysia Airlines is a ringgit that doesn’t go to the poor and the needy who need it more. I certainly can’t, and won’t, offer my blessing to such wastage.

It’s time we moved on. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.