INTERVIEW Once the pride of the nation, Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has been in the doldrums for the past decade, and making losses of between RM4 million and RM7 million a day for the past four to five years.

Former MAS chief executive officer and managing director Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman finds this very surprising and claimed the management did nothing to minimise the daily losses.

Abdul Aziz was with the national carrier from 1971 to 1991, and when he left MAS, it reputedly had cash reserves of RM5 billion.

He said he met Dr Mahathir Mohamad ( photo ), who was still the prime minister then, and recommended that action be taken on those responsible for causing the losses.

“I proposed the government take action on those bringing down MAS, but it fell on deaf ears,” said a dejected Abdul Aziz.

In the past four or five years, he said those who were put in charge had placed the airline further in the red and he found this difficult to understand.

“Initially I thought the loss was about RM4 to RM5 million a day. Consultants (hired by MAS) came to interview me three months ago and when I asked how come they did not do anything then, they told me the losses were not RM4 to RM5 million a day but RM7 million a day.

“I remember those days, when we found we lost RM10,000 a day that that was already worrying. I asked all sorts of questions. Now they are losing RM4 to RM7 million a day which is a huge loss, and yet those responsible didn't take any action to stop the bleeding. That surprises me,” he said.

A former Sessions Court judge

Abdul Aziz was a former Sessions Court president before he joined MAS in 1971 as company secretary, and left as the CEO and MD in 1992.

He said he found it puzzling that there was no effective leadership of the company during the last five years in the management of MAS.

“Maybe there is no leader to guide the airline.

“In those days, in the board of MAS, half of them were government officers from the Transport Ministry, Finance Ministry and Department of Civil Aviation. If we started to make losses, they would start asking questions. I do not know who are on the board now,” he said.

The 82-year-old Abdul Aziz added that during his time, he would do spot checks even at 3am, where he once found a staff sleeping and reprimanded him.

On another occasion, he found a sudden rise in the number of 'pregnant' women staff.

“It was only after checks were conducted that we knew some workers were smuggling out chicken, which they took from the catering division. Action was taken against them," Abdul Aziz said.

Six A380s purchased , but only four in use

Abdul Aziz said he also got to know MAS had purchased six A380 aircraft, but asked why only four were in use.

“I questioned why did the company bought six A380 aircraft ( photo ), but nobody could answer me at that time.

“I was told only four were flying and two were on land all the time. That probably contributed to the substantial loss. This is a very expensive aircraft, as each costs more than RM1 billion and they must have borrowed money. This must be terrible,” he said.

Definitely, Abdul Aziz added, the costs went out of control as a result of this.

“If, in the UK, Australia or the US, there will be a revolution with that kind of loss. Whatever the case, something went wrong with the operation after I left,” he said.

He also thinks MAS used the wrong aircraft for some of its routes.

It was reported last month that the new company replacing MAS would shift towards using smaller planes .

When he joined the national carrier, Abdul Aziz said, he knew the law on international aviation but had to learn other skills from scratch.

He recalled going for engineering and business courses to get to know how to run an airline.

Other divisions contributed to income

The octogenarian said he would find ways to generate income for the national carrier.

“During my days, I paid a lot of attention to cargo because at that time Malaysia was still small commercially and we were nowhere. I thought the first thing we should do was to have cargo services – bringing in and taking out of cargo to help the government and promote business.

“We succeeded and made money in the cargo business,” he said.

Abdul Aziz said he was also shocked to learn that the MAS engineering division had no maintenance and repair services for third-party aircraft.

This, he added, meant that the airline did not make money from engineering and that during his time, the main ambition was for MAS to become a world class set-up in this field.

“Although we started from nowhere, we managed to develop it and by the time I left we were a world-class engineering fixture.

“We repaired aircraft from the United States, Canada, Australia and even from Singapore Airlines. We made money from engineering and as a result our well-trained engineers were among the best in this region.

“I am really very upset when I heard that there is no business in cargo and engineering. This is a complete change from what we had achieved in  those days,” said the puzzled Abdul Aziz.

He also found it surprising that no action was taken against former MAS chairperson Tajudin Ramli, and that the suit filed by the national carrier was even dropped.

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