THE bustle of air travel in Malaysia has made a pleasant return after being eerily quiet for too long due to pandemic curbs. And, with that, there is renewed hope that the country's national carrier Malaysia Airlines is poised to see its sagging fortunes - this preceded the pandemic, by the way - finally restored.

Malaysia was relatively late to the party, having truly reopened its borders to international travel only this month as it transitions to treating Covid-19 as endemic following an aggressive vaccine rollout.

Some encouraging signs have emerged for Malaysia Airlines, which has suffered one too many tragic blows over the past decade and whose survival is of national strategic interest. The one with the biggest skin in the game is the group's sole shareholder Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, which has pumped in some RM28 billion over the years to keep the airline, against all odds, afloat.