If you read this article from The Star, you will read a beaming report of MAS making RM240million in profit.
Now if you read the article carefully, you will come across this line:
The turnaround in the third quarter just ended was partly attributed to a one-off gain of RM194mil from the sale of MAS’ headquarters in Kuala Lumpur and compensation received from the government.
I don’t want to be repetitious but I am sure all of us know (if not, GOOGLE it please) how much the government is compensating MAS for giving up its “money losing” (yet “money making” for Air Asia) domestic routes - yipee!!
So I am sure most of us here are capable of simple mathematics, so I will leave it to your own conclusion as to whether MAS did make a profit.
Profits from their main business of zipping passengers here and there? NO. Profits from property investment? YES. So there you go. Short-term profits from route rationalization, asset dumping and cost cutting is a reality for MAS today. Long-term profits from their core business of air travel will be trickier. People travel in/out of Singapore for business. Tourists bypass us and head in/out of Thailand for pleasure. We are, sad to say, stuck in the middle. So, without serious improvements to the sorry state of our country (infrastructure, business, tourism and most importantly, mentality), MAS will find it difficult to compete.
Very good analysis. But seriously MAS has a lot of deeper problems than it seems.