Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS) air crew walk through Kuala Lumpur International... Read More
Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, whose contract was supposed to end next month, will continue to lead the carrier until July 1, Azman Mokhtar, managing director of majority owner Khazanah Nasional Bhd., said at a briefing in Kuala Lumpur today. Malaysia Airlines yesterday posted a sixth quarterly loss and said the full financial impact from the disasters will only be seen in the second half.
Sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, which made a 1.38-billion ringgit ($438 million) buyout offer this month to take Malaysia Airlines (MAS) private, said it will i
nvest 6 billion ringgit as it seeks to return the carrier to a profit in three years. Prime Minister Najib Razak has said “painful steps” need to be taken to overhaul the airline, which has racked up 4.9 billion ringgit in losses since the start of 2011.
Khazanah will invest in a “staggered and conditional basis” over the next three years, it said in a statement. “While funds have been made available, they come with strict conditions, so as to ensure that MAS truly resets its business model and cost structures, in order to be truly sustainable.”
“We expected the impact of MH370” on second-quarter performance, Ahmad Jauhari, Chief... Read More
Tainted Image
“The need to restructure the company was accelerated” after the disasters damaged the brand, Ahmad Jauhari said in a statement yesterday. “Our company has had to undergo a thorough re-examination and re-evaluation in order to reposition ourselves as a stronger and more sustainable Malaysia Airlines for the future.”The March 8 disappearance of Flight 370, en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board, sparked street protests in Beijing and prompted boycotts by Chinese travelers. No trace of the plane has been found in the world’s longest search for a missing jet in modern aviation history.
The airline’s yields, or measure of ticket prices, fell 4 percent in the second quarter to 21.7 sen, the company said. It filled 73.7 percent of its seats in that period, 6.7 percentage points lower than a year earlier.
“We expected the impact of MH370” on second-quarter performance, Ahmad Jauhari said. “Given that, our team put in much hard work and effort to regain market confidence and rebuild sales. Tragically, just as we were beginning to see signs of recovery in all regions, we were dealt the blow of MH17.”
Bookings Slumped
Flight 17 carried 298 people and was shot down in Ukraine July 17 on a route Malaysia Airlines said was declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The Ukrainian government blamed the downing on pro-Russian rebels in the country’s eastern part.Average weekly bookings fell 33 percent immediately after the incident, the airline said yesterday.
Malaysia Airlines retired its older Boeing Co. 737-400 aircraft at the end of June, six months earlier than planned, to save fuel costs and increase productivity, the company said in the statement. It had a fleet of 127 aircraft at mid-August.
Unverified images of near-empty Malaysia Airlines planes have circulated on social media since MH17 crashed. The airline will review its European routes, Khazanah said today.
The company’s cash and cash equivalent dropped to 2.38 billion ringgit at the end of June, compared with 3.25 billion ringgit at the end of March, it said.
The net loss widened to 307 million ringgit last quarter from a year earlier, the company said. Revenue fell to 3.59 billion ringgit. The carrier will probably lose more than 1 billion ringgit in 2014 and continue to report losses through 2016, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Malaysia Airlines has lost 19 percent of its market value this year. The shares were suspended today. Khazanah’s buyout will result in the company’s delisting, targeted for completion by year-end.
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