Crisis-stricken Malaysia Airlines said today its second-quarter loss nearly doubled as the loss of flight MH370 spurred a decline in bookings, warning the red ink would accelerate as the year wears on.
The flag carrier said it posted a 305.7 million ringgit (USD 97.2 million) loss in the April-June quarter, which followed the March 8 disappearance of flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew aboard.
That compared to a 175 million ringgit loss in the same period of last year.
The latest results mark the sixth straight quarterly loss for Malaysia Airlines (MAS), which has struggled to stay competitive and is now in dire financial straits following MH370 and the July 18 shooting down over Ukraine of flight MH17, which killed all 298 aboard that plane.
"The impact of the MH370 incident and intensified competition resulted in" a 6.7 per cent drop in bookings, it said in a statement to the Malaysian stock exchange.
But the airline -- which is in the process of being taken over by Malaysia's state investment fund as part of a bid to restructure and rescue the company -- warned that second-half results will be even worse.
"The full financial impact of the double tragedies of MH370 and MH17 is expected to hit Malaysia Airlines in the second half of the year, where we saw a sharp decline in average weekly bookings by 33 per cent immediately after the MH17 incident, with numerous flights cancelled," it said.
MAS has bled money for years, losing a combined USD 1.3 billion over the past three calendar years before 2014, as intensifying competition from more nimble rivals like Malaysia's fast-growing budget carrier AirAsia have lured away travellers with their rock-bottom pricing.
But the sudden association with tragedy for an airline that previously had a solid safety record has pushed it the financial precipice.
Malaysian state investment arm Khazanah Nasional, which owns 70 per cent of the carrier, has said it will announce a major restructuring plan possibly as early as Friday in a bid to save the stricken 68-year-old airline, one of Malaysia's biggest brands.
