MAS to cut 6,000 jobs, spend $2.4b on restructuring

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia Airlines will cut 30 per cent of its workforce as part of a restructuring that will cost 6 billion ringgit (S$2.4 billion), majority investor Khazanah Nasional said on Friday.

Khazanah said the carrier will trim its staff by 6,000 to 14,000 as it seeks to stem long-running losses worsened by two aircraft disasters this year.

The state fund said the airline will be de-listed from the Kuala Lumpur exchange by the end of 2014, adding that Ahmad Jauhari Yahya will stay on as chief executive until July 2015.

Khazanah said it aims to return the airline to profitability within three years of its de-listing, and plans to re-list the carrier in three to five years from now.

On Thursday, MAS said its second-quarter net loss widened to 307 million ringgit from 176 million a year earlier, though the result was an improvement from the net loss of 443 million ringgit in the first quarter.