Is it time to let Malaysia Airlines fend for itself?

THIS year - it was hoped - would be remarkably different for ailing Malaysia Airlines (MAS).

Against all odds, it would rise like a phoenix and stage a grand comeback to Bursa Malaysia amid cheer that shareholder Khazanah Nasional Berhad has nailed it (finally) and restored the carrier's fortunes and alongside that, national pride.

All that sounds absurd now.

Malaysia's sovereign-wealth fund Khazanah last week reported its first pre-tax loss since 2005 for 2018 owing to huge impairments of RM7.3 billion (S$2.4 billion), half of which stemmed from provisions related to the airline company Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB).

Since Khazanah took the national airline private five years ago and coughed up some RM6 billion to keep it afloat under a survival plan that saw the airline do almost everything conventionally possible - cut jobs, routes and planes plus supplanted by a newco and unprecedentedly, twice picked foreigners to helm the government-linked company (GLC) - MAS h…