(October 9): National carrier Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is holding a “spring sale” in continuing attempts to recover from the losses incurred after the twin disasters of flight MH370 and MH17, an Australian daily reported.
According to The Australian, the deals which must be booked before October 21 and mainly target Australian travellers include economy return fares as low as US$526 (RM1,721) to Kuala Lumpur, US$1,642 (RM5,373) to Paris and US$1,785 (RM5,841) to London.
Business fares, meanwhile, start from US$2,882 for return trip to Phuket.
The deals are aimed at promoting MAS’s A330 and A380 aircraft on Asian, Middle East and European routes, the paper added.
MAS has been under huge financial pressure following the disasters of flight MH370, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, and flight MH17 which was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17.
A total of 298 people died on board MH17 while the 239 who were on board MH370 remain unaccounted for.
Under the Montreal Convention, a multilateral treaty, MAS is liable to pay compensation of approximately US$183,000 for each passenger killed.
Analysts had warned that MAS’s airfares were expected to drop as the national carrier would need to undercut pricing to get its passenger load factor back to above 70%.
And under a restructuring exercise expected to cost some RM6 billion, as many as 6,000 jobs or 30% of the MAS workforce will be cut while headquarters and principal operations will be moved to KL International Airport (KLIA).
The restructuring exercise will also see MAS dropping unprofitable routes and scaling down flight frequencies while top foreign executives will be roped in to help turn around the struggling carrier.
Outgoing Aer Lingus chief executive officer Christoph Muller is tipped to take over leadership at MAS amid reports that for the first time, a foreigner will head the national carrier.
Current chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya will continue to lead until July 2015.
MAS has posted three straight years of losses in the face of competition from rising budget airlines like AirAsia Bhd.