Malaysia Airlines to lay off one-third of 20,000 staff

Bangkok, May 25 (IANS/EFE) Malaysia Airlines is expected to lay off roughly one-third of its 20,000 staff on Wednesday, under its restructuring plans to make the company more profitable, media reported on Monday.

The entire 20,000-employee workforce will actually be terminated, and then two-thirds of them will be given new contracts.

Executive chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers Mohammad Faiz Azmi has been appointed as the airlines' administrator and would head the process of letting go the employees.

After restructuring, the airline will mainly operate within the country, according to the Malaysia Chronicle.

Malaysia Airlines CEO Christoph Mueller said in a statement that flight operations would continue normally, maintaining all prior schedules and reservations.

The company had been suffering, and two air accidents in 2014 put the company in a further precarious position.

On March 8 last year, Flight MH370, with 239 people aboard, disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, while four months later, Flight MH17, with 289 people on board, crashed in eastern Ukraine, where clashes were escalating between government forces and pro-Russian rebels.

--IANS/EFE

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