Malaysia Air CEO: ‘Significant recovery’ in business after missing plane

Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said his company has experience a “significant recovery” in business since one of its planes disappeared this spring, the Associated Press reports. 

“We are seeing a significant recovery in all markets, with the exception of China,” the airline chief said. “We are not there yet, but close to where we were before.”

Malaysia Air has been facing turmoil since the disappearance of its Flight 370 en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing on March 8. 

{mosads}The plane was carrying 239 passengers and crew members, including a large number of Chinese residents, at the time of its disappearance. The plane was last detected by air traffic controllers about an hour into its flight. 

Officials from multiple nations conducted a three-month search for the plane, focusing first on the Gulf of Thailand, and later on, the southern Indian Ocean. 

Aviation observers have said the fallout from the flight’s disappearance has raised the possibility that Malaysia Air might have to declare bankruptcy, but the company’s chief said this week that would be a last resort. 

“We will consider bankruptcy if we are insolvent but we are not,” he said. “We will consider bankruptcy if we cannot meet our obligations to creditors but we are not in that state.” 

Jauhari said Malaysia would be able to turn their business around if they made drastic changes now. 

“We cannot simply go on with incremental improvements,” he said. Our only option at this point is radical or sweeping change. We have had a lot of financial reset but we have never had an operational reset.”