Airline News
Fresh funds for MAS
July 27th 2015
Khazanah Nasional may inject another 1-2 billion ringgit ($263- $526 million) into Malaysia Airlines (MAS) to keep it afloat, the Business Times has reported, adding the new funds would come at the end of MAS’ three-year restructuring plan and would be on top of the 6 billion ringgit Khazanah already invested in MAS. Read More »
Meanwhile, MAS Employees Union president, Alias Aziz, last week said the approximately 6,000 MAS employees to be laid off September 1 are expected to receive compensation from September 7, specifying those who served more than 10 years would receive their one-and-a-half-month’s last pay multiplied by years of service. “For those who served less than ten years, they are expected to receive one month’s final salary multiplied by years of service while persons with disabilities and husbands and wives who worked in the same company, one of them will receive an additional 30 %,” he told Malaysia’s Bernama news agency.
The services of all 20,000 MAS employees were terminated on June 1 and offer letters subsequently sent to 14,000 of them to join the ‘New MAS’. Meanwhile, speaking to MAS pilots and crew last week, This Week in Asia-Pacific Aviation learnt that another 3,000 jobs are supposed to be axed by March.
After Christoph Mueller took over as new MAS chief in May, the Kuala Lumpur-based carrier has terminated a large number of routes, including Frankfurt, Istanbul, Male and Brisbane, while significantly reducing frequency on key trunk routes such as Delhi, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide. To this end, This Week in Asia-Pacific Aviation understands MAS is looking to retire its B777 fleet by early next year, while still scouting for possible suitors for its six A380s.
Following the appointment of ex-Ryanair Peter Bellew as COO in June, Mueller last week announced the appointment of Paul Simmons as CCO from December 1. Simmons is currently CCO of British flyBe.
