A union representing over half of Malaysia Airlines’ (MAS) employees are issuing a memorandum pleading with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to intervene and save the long-ailing airline that has suffered even deeper dips into red ink since the disappearance of Flight MH370 in March.
Executive secretary of the Malaysia Airlines System Employees Union (Maseu), Mohd Jabbarullah Abd Kadir, also said the airline needs fresh leadership to guide the company to profitability again.
“It is time for us to beg the PM to intervene, to save MAS. This is a big hope for us,” The Malay Mail Online‘s Ida Lim reports him telling press at the Maseu office. He later added that the federal government should not wait for MAS to accrue further losses before stepping in to take the reins.
“When we send the memorandum to the PM next week when he returns from China, we will tell the government what are the problems, we will tell the PM,” he said.
While the memorandum is still being drafted, Mohd Jabbarullah confirmed that the document will include a call for the airlines top three executives to step down, and a request for a new and comprehensive plan to turn the national carrier around financially.
The three executives whose terminations are likely to be demanded are MAS CEO AHmad Jauhari Yahya, director of engineering Azhari Dahlan and director of human resources Zahrah Zaid. Maseu had previously called for their resignations, but this time the union declined to attach a deadline to their request.
The union had also protested on Monday against the rumoured plans to sell off MAS’s engineering unit, insisting that all units should continue to remain under one entity.
The federal government’s investment arm Khazanah Nasional owns a substantial share in MAS, which lost RM443 million in the firsrt quarter of 2014 alone. It was the airline’s worst loss in the past five quarters.
Jabbbarullah said MAS had been plagued by poor management and numerous resignations by dissatisfied staff members who left seeking better pay.
He claimed over 100 engineers and 36 junior engineers had lef the airline in the past two years, and that an estimated 20 cabin crew quit the company every month.
He went as far as to say that with employees seeing “no future” in the airline’s prospects, the MAS recruitment program has turned in a “traning ground” for future employees of other airlines.
Mohd Jabbarullah said the union’s previous picket was legal, but declined to say if Maseu was planning on stagin more protests or even a strike.
“We haven’t planned any pickets yet, maybe the government will pay attention to our problems.
“It’s very important, if we are under a crisis, facing various challenges, the country’s image is not affected. That’s why Maseu is very careful, we don’t want to jeopardise our country’s image, our airline’s image,” he said.
