On Tue, 22 Jul 2014 14:17:17 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Tuesday, July 22, 2014 1:55:01 PM UTC-4, nam sak wrote:
When you fly MAS you are not flying on a normal airline. You are
flying on a bankrupt vessel of the Malaysian Government. A Government
that makes the Third Reich look like a teddy bear's picnic.

Are you really sure you want to make that comparison? And from what I
understand it's a publicly traded company, the govt owns about half of it.
In international aviation, I don't think that's unusual at all.

Yes very very sure. Racial discrimination is not only considered
normal in Malaysia it is actively encouraged by government policy.
Denialists either disappear or when they are too well known are put in
jail on a variety of dubious charges. I think the only major
difference I can see between the Malaysian Government and the Third
Reich is that the Third Reich only lasted just over 10 years whereas
the Malaysian Reich has lasted nearly 60. In part because it has been
propped up by 'the west' in the mistaken belief that it is 'friendly'.
Reminds me of a certain Mr. Chamberlain.

I would be interested to know which half of MAS the government owns. I
know about the 52 % that Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad (Malaysian
Government) owns and the 17% Khazanah Nasional (Malaysian Government)
owns and the 11% the Employees Provident Fund (Malaysian Government)
owns and the 6% Amanah Raya Nominees (Malaysian Government) owns and
the 3% State Financial Secretary Sarawak (Malaysian Government) owns
and the 2.5% Warisan Harta Sabah (Malaysian Government) owns........

Actually when I think about it the major gap in my knowledge is
exactly which shares the Malaysian Government does not own. They claim
that 5% belongs to what they refer to as 'foreign shareholders'. If
you can find out who they are then I would be very interested. In the
absence of information to the contrary I am tempted to assume that the
'foreign shareholdes' are part of the Malaysian Fuhrer's untaxed
offshore 'pension fund'. If I am right then we can at least take
comfort from the fact that at the end of the day he will be lucky to
get a few magic beans for them.

Personally I do not think that is usual for an airline. Particularly
one that tries to sell itself as living in the real world.


I disagree though about your comment about 'would have happened to any
other airline departing from Malaysia'. Don't understand that bit.


I went a little off track there. My point was that most of the bungling
of important matters with MA370 was coming from the Malaysian govt officials
in charge of the investigation, not the airline. They had control of the response and the crash investigation, not the airline. So, for example, the initial confusion
that followed for several days, where the Malaysian govt pointed the search
in the South China Sea, could have and likely would have happened without
regard to what carrier it was. If it was a Korean Air, Singapore Airline
or Lufthansa, that took off from KL, the response in the hours that followed,
would likely have been pretty much the same. They would have had to rely
on what Malaysia was saying their civilian and military radar showed. And
initially, Malaysia said that the civilian radar ended exactly when
everything else went dark, so it seems very reasonable that the search
would have started at the same place, which turned out to be totally wrong.

I admit that the Malaysian Government would have tried to hamper any
airline's attempts but I think to generalize like this is may be going
a bit too far. I like to think that after a short while any reputable
airline would have told Hishammuddin where to stick his phony press
conferences and just gone public. Considering their insurance and
other responsibilities it is difficult to imagine how the CEO of a
normal public company could have avoided doing so without risking a
jail sentence.

The primary radar data is a good example. It was not Malaysian primary
radar data that initiated a series of questions that forced the
Malaysians to begin telling more of the story. It was THAI primary
radar data. The Thais released it to the airline (MAS). The airline
released it to their bosses (the Malaysian Government) and then kept
schtum. Their bosses (the Malaysian Government) then encouraged
several other countries to waste time and effort and put their own
lives at risk looking for an airliner where they knew themselves it
was not. What kind of airline/government does that for goodness sake?
and why?

I have performed several operational audits of (civilian) Thai Air
Traffic control and I have been told that the only reason the
Malaysians went public about their own primary radar data was because
the Thai Military gave them an ultimatum. Release your data in 24
hours or we will release ours.

If this information had been released to a 'normal' airline and the
Malaysian Government chose to keep quiet about it in their press
conferences do you honestly think a normal airline would just let it
go? Alarm bells would have been ringing right left and Centre and they
would have read the Malaysian Government the riot act. If the
Malaysians had continued to obfuscate then some whistle blower at the
airline would have released the details (after having been secretly
ordered to do so by the CEO).

But MAS? What choice does it have?

It IS the Government.


Where I went off track was that had it been a foreign airline, then that
country would have been in charge of the subsequent investigation. That
probably could have saved much of the public missteps, backtracking, etc.
Not sure how much time it would have cut off the search though. They still
would have been at the mercy of the Malaysians, who for example were
reluctant to allow anyone to see their military radar tracks of the flight.
They may have taken exactly the same position if it was Lufthansa that
was running the investigation, ie they may have refused for days to allow
them to see it too.

As said above the Malaysian radar data was not significant. It was
only released after they were threatened with exposure. By the time
the Malaysians (sort of*) released their own radar data everyone
already knew what had happened. The key fact was that MAS being owned
by the Malaysian Government was not willing to say anything that went
against Government Policy and so kept quiet about critical information
that had nothing to with national security only national trying to
save egg on face.

*I say sort of because the Malaysian Government has still not actually
released it, along with most other things concerned with MH370
(Particular the cargo - they have released dribs and drabs but not the
full details. National security? ROTFLMAO).

Back to the main issue of what airspace is cleared, deemed safe and by
who, I had CNN on today. Their reporter said that the organization that
represents most of the international carriers, (think it was IATA), issued
a statement a few days ago that said the position of it's member airlines
is that they don't determine which airspace is safe, that it's entirely up
to civilian govt aviation authorities.

And I'm sure you'll love this. On the news last night they showed the
flight path taken yesterday by Malaysian Airlines from KL to London.
It went right over Iraq and Syria. And again, I think if you look, you'll
see that most, maybe all airlines that fly routes where that is the shortest
path, do the same. It's deemed safe by whatever govt authorities have
control over it and permitted.

I think I said previously that I am not too much bothered about routes
unless some volcano is blowing it's top. There is always going to be a
risk. When I choose an airline (in general) the route is not going to
feature much in my selection process. I focus on is it non stop and
the airline not the route. And IMO anyone that would fly MAS needs to
seriously reconsider their selection criteria.

I don't know if it's relevant but if I am totally totally honest the
reason I told my employer that I would never fly MAS ever again (at
the risk of losing my job) was just a feeling. Malaysians and
Singaporeans can be very similar in my opinion. They are arrogant,
rude, loud and obnoxious. But SQ seem to have it right when they hire
staff. I would fly with them any time. But MAS? Sorry, no way. If you
want to fly Malaysian Government Airways then good luck. You'll need
it.

There are only 2 airlines that I can think of that are worse than MAS.

- British Airways
- Qantas

If I was given the choice between flying MAS, BA or QF I honestly
think my head would explode.