Even before Malaysia Airlines (MAS) begins its plan to lay off more than 25% of its current workforce, nearly 200 of the ailing airline’s cabin crew have resigned, some citing fears for their safety.
MAS revealed that in the first seven months of this year, 186 cabin crew members had quit the company, with many attributing their resignations to family pressure following the twin tragedies of Flight MH370’s disappearance in March and Flight MH17’s crash over eastern Ukraine in July.
“Following the MH17 incident, there was a spike in crew resignations but the number has now decreased to acceptable and routinely expected levels,” it said in a statement, as reported by The Malay Mail Online.
“Many cited ‘family pressure’ as the reason for their resignation due to the MH17 and MH370 tragedies.”
Abdul Malek Ariff, secretary-general of the MAS Employees’ Union (Maseu), told The Edge Financial Daily that some cabin crew members “are now afraid to fly”. He also said that crew shortages are forcing MAS staff to work up to 12 hours a day.
Maseu represents about 8,000 of MAS’s total workforce of about 20,000.
MAS has been in financial trouble for the past three years, but 2014 has proven to be devastating for its bottom line, with the MH370 and MH17 disasters compounding an already entrenched pattern of rising costs, lack of competitiveness and perceived mismanagement.
The Federal Government’s investmnt arm Khazanah Nasional Bhd (Khazanah), already the majority stakeholder in Malaysia Airlines, moved recently to buy out all remaining MAS shares at a cost of RM1.4 billion, with a view to delist the airline from the stock market, restructure its operations, and make it fully private.
A source revealed to Reuters yesterday that part of the restructuring exercise in the works for MAS was to lay off 5,000 to 6,000 of its current workforce, a culling of more than 25%.
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