Malaysian Airlines ...

[Smiles]

An extremely sad ending to an Asian airline which just recently became one of the few airlines to be ranked as 5-star on SkyTrax. ( http://www.airlinequality.com/StarRanking/5star.htm ).
Someone will arrange what should be a pretty sweet-&-cheap deal.
Malaysian has many daily flights to and from Suvarnaphumi Airport.

The first disaster this year has not been solved at all. There are many theories, a few of them conspiratorial.
The second recent horror second-guessed regarding whether they should have been flying over an 'iffy' area of Ukraine. But, who thought, who thought?


LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Malaysia is taking the beleaguered Malaysia Airlines System Bhd MY:MAS 0.00% MLYAF 0.00% private as part of plans to restructure the carrier, reports said Friday. Government holding company Khazanah Nasional Bhd -- which owns almost 70% of the carrier -- reportedly said Friday it will buy out shareholders, with the widely anticipated move following a heavy drop in the stock price in recent months as the airline suffered the loss of two of its passenger flights this year. Khazanah will pay a 12.5% premium to the last closing price, spending 1.38 billion Malaysian ringgit ($429.9 million) to acquire outstanding interest in the airline, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a stock-exchange filing. Shares of Malaysia Airlines were on trading halt Friday, pending the announcement. Khazanah plans to restructure the flag carrier in which it described as a "complete overhaul," The Wall Street Journal said.
( http://www.marketwatch.com/story/malays ... =afterbell (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/malaysia-airlines-to-be-privatized-restructured-2014-08-08?dist=afterbell) )

They're just going to re-badge the airline, give it a makeover, remove the association in the travelling public's mind between "MH" and "oh christ!"

[corky]

I've just been onto the Malaysia Airlines website for an update.

Can you believe they still offer return flights?

[fedssocr]

Why not? It's just a financial restructuring. They're not shutting down the airline. Essentially it sounds like the government that already owns 70% of the airline is just buying out the other shares outstanding.

[fountainhall]

MH seems to need more than just a financial restructuring. Its financial problems have certainly been going for some years with its strategy of lowering prices to attract more customers helping to fill planes but also severely draining its coffers. With the two recent crashes, it now has to tackle both a wholesale restructuring and a rebuilding of confidence. Korean went through a similar confidence exercise after several crashes, including KE007 being shot down by the Soviets, and JAL recently came through bankruptcy and finally seems to be on the 'up' again.

Restructuring is going to be more difficult for MH, though. The government has pumped in more than US$1 billion in the last few years to keep it afloat. But MH still needs to cut more routes and overcapacity on some. It is not filling its six A380s which many claimed were a prestige purchase rather than one justified by potential demand. Staff numbers have to be cut and productivity increased. In 2013 it was estimated each MH employee generated $243,000 in revenue. That compared to $514,000 by employees at Singapore Airlines and $410,000 at Cathay Pacific, both also 5-star Skytrax carriers. Yet the cost of living and average salaries in Singapore and Hong Kong are vastly higher than in Malaysia.

Alongside cutting staff, MH has to do something about its senior management and governance. The shambles of the response witnessed by the world in the wake of the disappearance of MH370 illustrated ineffective management and an astonishingly incompetent Acting Transport Minister, not coincidentally the nephew of the Prime Minster. In Malaysia's Bumi crony politics, where preference is given to ethnic background rather than merit, this may prove more of a problem.

[fedssocr]

BBC has a report about the situation

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28735598

[firecat69]

I certainly don't know much about MY but I do know a bit about aviation. Do not seed how the company can be blamed for either of the past crashes yet. Certainly not their fault that the Idiot Russians shot down their airplane and the missing plane , we may never know whether it was a crackpot pilot or something structural.

I agree their executives and public relation people did a terrible job . They must have gone to school with Bush's people from Hurricane Katrina or Obama's people on Syria.

[lego]

Indeed, more than anything else, losing two planes within such a short time span and under these very particular circumstances is incredibly bad luck. Much like the catastrophic situation 9/11 created for US airlines. Even an airline that is managed to perfection would have a hell of a struggle after something like that happening.

I was gob-smacked, totally gob-smacked, to read today that the air traffic controller in KL fell asleep after MH380 disappeared. How alien to Asian culture!!

[fountainhall]

I'd be pretty gob-smacked too. Another Malaysian Airlines flight to China disappeared? Three planes gone in a year? Flight 380 goes to Guangzhou ;)

I was gob-smacked, totally gob-smacked, to read today that the air traffic controller in KL fell asleep after MH380 disappeared. How alien to Asian culture!!I was typing it at an airport myself waiting to get on a flight on an A380 ... oh well, something else for a447 to get his teeth into. The poor chap needs something to do apart from reminiscing about our holiday together.

[a447]

Oh, dear!

[fountainhall]

I'm going to Sydney in December. The only miles flight I can get is . . . Malaysian! At least I get a few days in KL as well! But I'll keep the phone ready in case there's another disappearing act!

The only miles flight I can get is . . . Malaysian!There's probably a reason for that. I'm flying out to KL on Malaysian myself shortly. a447 enjoyed our stay at the Hotel Capitol so much he's going back there, so I thought I'd surprise the old bugger and turn up the same time he's there. Then I'll be able to add my own gloss to his trip reports - just to keep him honest you understand.

[fountainhall]

After all the denials, all the clearances of the crew, all the lies about MH 370 that went on for days, New York magazine has just published an article from someone close to FBI sources claiming that the pilot of that doomed flight had indeed mapped out a similar suicide route down to the southern Indian Ocean on his home flight simulator, and this was done only a month before the jet disappeared. Not surprisingly, the article contends that this information was deliberately withheld by the Malaysian authorities.

The writer confirms that the new evidence is not conclusive. But given all the lies and evasions from the Malaysian authorities, it backs up earlier conclusions that the only possible practical scenario given the way the aircraft doubled back, crossed the north of Malaysia, dropped to a low altitude to turn north and around the tip of Penang - the pilot's home state - before rising again and flying almost due south is that the pilot was on a suicide mission.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/mh370-pilot-flew-suicide-route-on-home-simulator.html

And as Malaysia starts to dig itself out of this new PR disaster, the on-going corruption case of the missing millions from the state-run 1MDB scandal just got a lot worse with the US Department of Justice claiming the missing amount is now in the billions. Apart from the US$700,000 or so lodged in the Prime Minister's own bank account which was to result in the firing of his Deputy and the Attorney General, part of the new missing cash was controlled by the Prime Minister's son and invested in things like art and Hollywood movies. This is all now starting to sound even more Nixon-esque than Watergate. But Malaysia is more strictly controlled than the US at that time with a much more tightly regulated media. Will the truth ever be known? I suspect not!

[goji]

I'm going to Sydney in December. The only miles flight I can get is . . . Malaysian!

Pay to go with a proper airline. You only live once.

[fountainhall]

Pay to go with a proper airline. You only live once.
I did finally manage to change the ticket to one on Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong! Malaysian - and Malaysia - are going through some dreadful times now.

[fountainhall]

The location of MH370 has been in the news again recently. An air crash investigator now claims that detailed examination of the flaperon which was found on a beach off Madagascar proves conclusively that it had been extended in the down position prior to landing in the water. Since hydraulics are required to push the flapper downwards at both take-off and landing, this allegedly proves that at least one of the aircraft's hydraulic systems was functioning properly and that someone in the cockpit must have taken the action to deploy it. The expert adds that failure to find much floating debris indicates that it was a slow, controlled descent into water.

But this is no smoking gun, unfortunately. If it was a slow controlled attempt to land on water, it surely goes against his theory that this was pilot suicide. That would be a long, slow lingering process indicating that the other pilot was either dead (somehow killed?) or locked outside the cockpit - rather like the suicide of the pilot in the German Wings aircraft who spent a long time slowly reducing height before crashing into the Alps. Would it not be simpler to go into a steep dive and get it over with? This is what happened with the Silkair and Egyptair crashes. Will we ever know?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/01/flight-mh370-was-flown-into-water-says-crash-expert

[Smiles]

Just checking in: I flew to Adelaide, Australia in this July on Malaysian and am happy to note that I am neither dissappeared, nor dead.

A reasonably comfy trip, though nothing special. Flew economy and managed to scam one of those seats where they often strap in nasty screaming toddlers. No annoying brats on either flight and those seats give one scads of leg room.