A spate of woes hit MAS but isn’t 5 incidents in August 2024 alone one too many to stomach?

Focus Malaysia:

A spate of woes hit MAS but isn’t 5 incidents in August 2024 alone one too many to stomach?

THE Malaysian cyberspace is filled with disgruntled flyers who have an axe to grind with the Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) whose airlines portfolio includes Malaysia Airlines (MAS), Firefly, MASwings, and AMAL (the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimage arm of MAS).

Combing the enormous quantity of brickbats hurled at flag carrier MAS which has in June 2024 climbed to the world’s 39th best airliner ranking (2023: 47th), FocusM came across two darndest observations from ‘lay Malaysians’ who tried to decipher what could be plaguing MAS’ operations in recent times.

This is indeed saddening given that the national carrier has just returned to the black on Dec 31, 2023 with a net profit of RM766 mil (end-2022: net loss of RM344 mil).

Screw-ups on the rise

“MAS (Malaysia Airlines) where got standard? Two incidents in June and five incidents in August. And the airline’s CEO is a senior pilot. He knows the stuff. Who sabotage him from inside? CTO (chief technology officer) or its Union?

The anonymous aviation industry enthusiast whose WhatsApp text has gone viral further provide breakdown of the aircraft type and the nature of the seven incidents.

They affected planes included two Boeing 737-800; Airbus 330 (four) and Airbus 350 (one) while the incidents were categorised into pressurisation (three); engine (two) and technical (two).

To make his account more empirical, the said aviation industry enthusiast went on to list down one-by-one each and every of the seven incidents along with a brief description of the fight details, affected sectors and what transpired in the incidents.


1) June 20: MH199. B738, HYD-KUL: Emergency landing [Engine]

2) June 24: MH780, B737, KUL-BKK: Mid-air pressurisation issue

3) Aug 4: MH156, A330, KUL-JED: Return soon after take-off [Technical]

4) Aug 5: MH01, A350, LHR-KUL: Diverted to DIA (Doha) [Weather detection system]

5) Aug 20: MH128, A330, MEL-KUL: Diverted to Alice Spring [Mid-air engine problem]

6) Aug 21: MH386. A330, KUL-PVG: Back to KUL [Cabin pressure problem]

7) Aug 22: MH152, A330, KUL-MED: Back to KUL [Cabin pressure problem]

Some of the stranded MAS passengers at the Doha international airport (Image credit: X)


Downward spiral

Another Malaysian who described himself as a “small potato who travels well enough to know some of the intricate details in aviation industry” breaks down the ails inflicting MAS to four areas of operations in his recent Facebook postings:

• Aircraft capacity: MAG operates 21 A330-200/300s and seven A350-900s for its entire medium haul routes and sole long-haul route to London. These aircraft have some of the highest utilisation rate among premium airlines in the world.

MAG is pushing them to work harder compared to previous A330 generation, often postponing some minor repair work.

With little breathing space among the fleet, the entire network schedule will go haywire if any of them suffers aircraft on ground (AOG) incident. Currently there are three A330-300 undergoing scheduled maintenance and they won’t be back in service until end-2024.

MAS can only hope now their A330-900s are delivered on time to provide the fleet some relief.

• Lack of spare parts: Referring to first point, why is the maintenance taking so long? Firstly, due to parts shortage. The current aviation market is still besieged by various post COVID-19 issues such as lack of spare parts due to supply chain issue,

Airbus and Boeing are not producing new aircraft fast enough. Even with new aircraft, they come with host of quality issue. Scrappers are not breaking up or scrapping older aircraft fast enough, hence parts flow in the market has been severely impacted.

Malaysia Airlines’ first A330neo aircraft begins its final assembly in Toulouse, France (Image credit: Malaysia Airlines/X)

Lack of trained personnel: The second reason why maintenance is taking longer than expected has to do with lack of qualified personnel.

MAS has been haemorrhaging talent since the rise of Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways. Never mind Singapore Airlines just next door has been poaching talent from Malaysia since both countries went separate ways in 1965.

By the time they trained a new batch of employees, the current ones are all throwing letters. The current MAS engineering team is working their ar*es out to keep the current schedule going. Give credit where it is due.

• Management in silo: One statement summarises all, “u x suka, u blh keluar” (translation: “you don’t like to work here (sic), you can get out”).

This golden statement. has been in use since the first round of redundancy in 2005 under its then CEO Datuk Seri Idris Jala. And again in 2015 after the MH17 and MH370 incidents.

Staff morale has not been the same since then. Malaysia Airlines lost bucket loads of very experienced talent in 2005.

A lot of pilots and engineers went to Korean Air, Eva Air, China Airlines, Vietnam Airlines and Singapore Airlines (this is given). Some headed to Middle East.

Even with not enough aircraft to go around, the Marketing/Communications Department keeps promoting new destinations. But when it comes to service recovery, they are all silent.

They only know how to issue the standard, “We apologise shits happens but that’s you passengers (sic) problem, not us management problem” – Aug 23, 2024