This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on March 21, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he prefers Malaysia Airlines Bhd to remain as a national airline, but the government appears to be incapable of reviving the loss-making carrier.

“I love MAS,” he said, referring to the airline by its former abbreviation. “I want MAS to be a national airline, but it seems like we are not capable of achieving this,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby yesterday.

Dr Mahathir said some local and foreign firms have shown interest in buying the airlines.

“There are certain parties who had proposing to buy MAS, and we didn’t reject (the possibility of selling).

“We want to study whether we have to divest (our stake in the airline) or not. Although the current management hired external managers, MAS is still incurring losses. Therefore one of the options is to sell it.

“We will consider everything — whether to change the management, downsize, or even expanding the current business scale, because we have many underutilised aircraft and they are causing the losses,” he explained.

Dr Mahathir also said that while many lower-ranking employees in Malaysia Airlines want to continue serving the carrier, the management’s strategy is not bringing profit to the group.

“Even after the government injected RM6 billion to help MAS, and it laid off 6,000 people, MAS is still not flying as it was in the past,” he said.

“It shows that laying off people or not, there is no difference,” he added.