Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said the government was also looking at the possibility of state refinancing or selling off Malaysia Airlines. A decision will be made soon, he said.
“It is a very serious matter to shut down the airline. We will nevertheless be studying and investigating as to whether we should shut it down or we should sell it off or we should refinance it,” he added.
Sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional took Malaysia Airlines private in 2014 after one of its flights, MH370, went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and another, MH17, was shot down over eastern Ukraine a few months later.
The airline has been struggling to transform its operations and return to profitability ever since. Khazanah said it was waiting for the airline to present a review of its business strategy.
