Dear MAS staff, we are sorry

The Star's frontpage yesterday was truly a heartbreaking image.

This week MAS employees will get termination letters from present operating company of Malaysian Airlines. Some will get letter of offer from the newco that will be taking over the operation. Out of 20,000 staff, one third or 6,000 will not get any offer.

In yesterday's report, one could hear staff complaining of MAS management refusal to talk to unions. Union head are trying to seek PM's last minute help because 8,000 will immediately lose their job tomorrow.

Their jobs would have been saved had the union heads been honest in their work and demands in the past. No, we are not about to repeat what past arguments of faulting unions for MAS failure. It is insensitive to do so.

It would be replicating the insensitive behaviour of the nutty and chicken dance Director of HR, Zaharah Zaid. She sent an e-mail to tell the staff to clean up their table from last week but in a subtly insulting manner. It is fair to ask as to what happen to adab sopan Melayu that was hallmark of Malaysian Hospitality?

Some staff complained to the paper that it is unfair to take our job away when it was the mistake of top management. It is sad but the reality of Corporate Malaysia started out by Khazanah Nasional is devoid of human sensitivity and social nation building agenda.

Whatever they did under so-called CSR are for show. There is no heart that came with it.

After having written countless postings over the years to help defend and save MAS, the common denominator in the turnaround of MAS from Binafikir inspired WAU till today, the driver seat of MAS remained with Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar.

Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli left in 2001 and it is today 2015, thus time to stop blaming him. Also, it is time to stop blaming Tan Sri Mohamed Nor Yusof or Dato Fuad Dahlan or Dato Idris Jala or Tengku Dato Azmil or Ahmad Jauhari.

Only Azman Mokhtar and Khazanah should be blame. Why is merit-based Corporate Malaysia not applying the same chop chop on Azman Mokhtar and Khazanah for their failure at MAS?

This blog kept emphasizing him that the CEO should be an Airliner but till MAS is finished that he finally accepted the idea that only an airliner could manage an airline to put Christophe Mueller as CEO. Can Mueller make the magic he had done with other previous employers?

It is like what Khazanah did with Ahmad Jauhari to do a major collaboration with Air Asia and only brought in a CEO to make a plan that will not work to work.

The collaboration did not work and tanked. Still Azman Mokhtar is still around. Khazanah is still the real CEO running the airline. He is adamant that MAS follow his and only recipe despite it not showing any signs of success ever. 

All along, Khazanah is more concern with Air Asia, another airline in which Khazanah has a little interest but CIMB has large exposure. Now Dato Nazir Tun Abdul Razak is on the Board of Director of Khazanah and chairs the executive committee.

Khazanah had all the while been insistent that the only way to clear MAS out of the rut is through out-sourcing, become low caste no frill airline, and enough of national airline status.

Even critical area is out-sourced to enable the sacking of the 6,000-8,000. MAS will be reduced to a regional based value airline. In another word, a smaller Air Asia.

Will it be cost competitive to compete with Air Asia? The end is already written on the wall.

Over the years, this blog have tried hard to highlight the mistake the leadership had done in handling MAS. We fought for the interest of MAS and its staff by highlighting the problems and weakness of management and stakeholder.

This week confirmed that all our effort had been in vain. People up there are too stubborn and they did not take heed the political implication for not safeguarding MAS.

To all MAS staff, we could only say, "We are sorry for failing you". We apologise for not able to make it happen.

Not only through our writings, we had engaged with various level of people and leadership to highlight MAS problems in which much of it was due to bad high level decisions made at Khazanah and brought forward some of the MAS staff suggestions

Since the top level leadership is inside the Board of Director of MAS, it is hard for them to over ride what was agreed at the Board level. In the place they should not be on the Board and that way, they could screw and remove management for failing in MAS.

We have tried our best but our best wasn't just good enough.

Pray that you all manage to get through this life's ordeal. Some will be given a letter to the CDC to assist them in seeking employment and getting retrained.

Our hope that the compensation is fair and substantial because when Idris Jala retrenched 3,000 before, it was a good compensation. Those left behind are supposed to be the better, dedicated and capable ones. It is only fair that they are compensated equally well for their loyalty.

Having undergone through similar situation before, our advise is to have trust in God and have faith with fate. It is only a small diversion from a bigger journey.

My prayers for all of you.