Increase of MAS airfares could not have come at a worse time when the complaint of “Mana Ada Sistem” is increasingly heard among passengers  in the past month with frequent delays of MAS flights reminiscent of the  poor MAS services a decade ago

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Tuesday) The increase of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) airfares could not have come at a worse time when the complaint of “Mana Ada Sistem” is increasingly heard among passengers  in the past month with frequent delays of MAS flights reminiscent of the poor MAS services a decade ago.

Why has MAS suddenly returned to the “Mana Ada Sistem” of a decade ago, when flight delays were the order of the day giving the national airline and the country such a bad name?

Is the Transport Minister, Datuk Chan Kong Choy aware of the abysmal drop in the standard of MAS services because of the frequent flight delays, which have become a daily agony for the traveling public?

Is he in a position to make public the number of MAS flights delayed each day for the past four weeks as compared to the previous month and the previous year?

There can be no justification for any increase of MAS fares at a time of deteriorating air services. Is the Transport Minister prepared to intervene to ensure that passengers are entitled to claim compensation from MAS for frequent and inordinate flight delays?

Malaysian taxpayers have been paying billions of ringgit in the past decade to prop up MAS – not only the RM850 million which the government is paying MAS under the new management to cover its  mutual separation scheme (MSS) to slash jobs and the rationalization of routes, but also the billions of ringgit in the repeated bail-out of MAS since the disastrous Tajudin Ramli “privatization” of government stake in MAS in 1994.

After billions of ringgit of public monies had been squandered on MAS  to benefit a handful of cronies over the past decade, it is not unreasonable for  the Malaysian traveling public to demand before there is any hike of MAS fares, the problem of the decline of standard of services should be first addressed particularly with regard to its flight schedules so  that MAS does not again  stand for “Mana Ada Sistem”!

(01/08/2006)