Ripping Off Malaysia Airlines

Do you recall this news last year ?

MAS, Qantas set to forge closer ties

• Malaysia Airlines and Qantas Airways Ltd are holding talks on closer partnership in the run-up to the national carrier joining the One World Alliance, sources said yesterday.
• “Talks are ongoing regarding a more comprehensive relationship with the airline (Qantas). The plan is to have something in place before the One World programme kicks in,” an industry source told Business Times.
• It is understood that the initiative is part of a wider plan to revive the fortunes of the national carrier. For the nine months ended Aug 30, 2011, MAS suffered a pre-tax loss of RM1.2 billion against a pre-tax profit of RM23.73 million in the same period a year ago.
• The market has been abuzz with the posibility of a MAS-Qantas tie-up

First of all I suspected something was seriously not right with this proposal. Why would a gwailoh airline like Qantas from Australia suddenly want to form partnerships with Malaysians? Especially when MAS itself was suffering losses of RM1.2 billion? There can only be one reason. Do read on.

I also suspected that some "con"-sultan must have thought up this idea and sold it to the same GLC dunggus who got liwatted by the Arabs and Sri Lankans over the Medini fiasco. Ini mesti lagi satu round cerita "GLC bodoh" kena liwat oleh con-sultan.

Well folks, here is the reason. Qantas Airlines is also facing financial difficulty. They have been losing money big time. Here is the news:

• "Qantas on Thursday reported an 83 per cent slump in half-year profit due to rising fuel costs and $194 million in losses related to the two-day grounding of its fleet last year.
• THE jobs of 1460 Qantas maintenance workers, including up to 400 in Brisbane, will be put under review today as the airline announces hundreds of cuts in other areas of its business.
• Qantas is also expected to announce the loss of hundreds of staff in other areas, including flight and back-office roles, as it scraps unprofitable routes.
• Qantas, which announced 1000 job losses last year, says the heavy maintenance jobs will not be moved offshore, despite union fears work could be shipped to Singapore, the Philippines, China and Hong Kong.

Qantas is making losses. MAS is making losses. So why would Qantas want to approach MAS (versus say SIA or Garuda or Thai Airways who also operate in this region) for a partnership?

They wont come unless they smell money - the bottomless pit of Malaysian taxpayers money which is being burned by the GLCs. MAS is a GLC. As always the 'con'-sultans will advise the GLCs to pump more taxpayers money into the business.

Not only Qantas is in financial trouble, the Australian low cost carrier Air Australia just left their passengers stranded in Phuket and grounded all their planes. Here is the story :

• Air Australia and its administrator were in discussions well before the airline ran out of money.
• 4000 of Air Australia’s customers are now being told to make their own way home after it went broke in the early hours of this morning.
• The break point is claimed to have been the refusal of a jet fuel supplier to refuel an Air Australia flight from Phuket to Melbourne last night

Let me give some free advice to MAS. Please dont listen to your 'con'-sultans if they advise you to form any alliances or tie ups with Air Australia ok. The airline has gone bust.