The audit identified serious problems ranging from lack of skilled workers for aircraft maintenance and shortage of critical parts, which led to MAS announcing a temporary 20% reduction in flights and routes. Transport Minister Anthony Loke said that the airline would have to provide monthly reports to CAAM, detailing the implementation of mitigation measures on the issues raised in the audit report.
How and why did Malaysia Airlines (MAS), the flagship carrier and pride of the nation, end up being the disaster that it currently is, after multiple bailouts that cost taxpayers tens of billions of ringgit? Khazanah Malaysia is reported to have sunk RM28 billion into MAS between 2000 and 2020 and had, at end-2020, committed to put in RM3.6 billion till 2025.
That must be the question in the minds of many Malaysians. That MAS is in financial trouble is nothing new. The airline has been mired in huge losses for the better part of the last 30 years. It has had multiple changes of CEOs, who had attempted unsuccessfully to turn the company around. But the recent string of emergency landings and flight diversions due to technical issues and a surprise audit by the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) that led to the shortening of its air operator certificate (AOC) from three years to only one year must surely be a new low for the national carrier.
