The CEO for the airline that experienced two disasters last year is now ‘technically bankrupt’ and about to lay off thousands of workers because of it.
The AFP noted that the new CEO Christoph Mueller said Malaysian Airlines is being forced to cut about 6,000 jobs, but said it is due to performance issues prior to the disasters.
"We are technically bankrupt and that decline of performance started long before the tragic events of 2014," he said during a news conference on Monday.
Despite the cuts, the airline is currently operating as normal and flights have not been affected.
On March 8, 2014, Flight MH370, which had around 240 passengers on board, vanished without a trace while en route to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. As previously reported, the plane’s disappearance was declared an accident in January.
Four months later after MH370 went missing, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed after it was shot down by surface-to-air missiles above the Ukraine.
The two tragedies hit the already-struggling airlines extremely hard and prompted the recent layoffs.
Mueller also said that he will work to stabilize the company and hopefully make it thrive over the next few years. The details of his plan have not yet been released.
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