Screenshots

The worms in the wood that I suspected are finally wriggling out slowly.

• JUNE 5: Malaysia Airlines (MAS) managing director Idris Jala was quoted as saying that the airline has asked for an independent audit on the 12 planes currently used by FAX to operate the Rural Air Services before it takes over the routes on Oct 1.

  Idris said the audit was to ensure that the planes – seven Fokker F50s and five Twin Otters – were “in the same operational condition” as when MAS handed them over to FAX in August last year.

• JUNE 16: Full ten days later, FAX chief executive officer Raja Mohd Azmi Razali was quoted as saying that his top management had decided to ground the Fokkers and subject each of the planes to “extra-intensive and extra-stringent repairs and checks from head to tail.”

FAX, for the record, admitted that the Fokkers "were in good working condition" when it took over them from MAS some ten months ago.

Why did the Fokkers deteriorate so drastically over such a short period? FAX gave an argument, via The Star:

"... When we took over these aircraft from Malaysia Airlines last August, the Fokkers were already old,” said Raja Azmi.

However, of the 10 Fokkers that MAS used to serve northern Sarawak and Sabah, they only gave us seven.

“FAX had to use these seven Fokkers to serve the destinations that were served by the 10 Fokkers,” he added.

“We had to fly to more sectors, make more rounds and carry more load due to the decrease in the number of Fokkers. This super-heavy-duty usage has taken its toil on the seven Fokkers.”

FLASHBACK

• JULY 2005: The Government announced that rationalisation of domestic air services, which involved the routes serviced by Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and Air Asia, was almost at the final stage.
• JULY 2006: AirAsia Berhad chairman Pahamin A. Rajab announced that AirAsia would be taking over from MAS 70 point-to- point routes from August 2006 under the domestic route rationalisation exercise. MAS would also see its aircraft servicing the domestic sector reduced from 40 to 21.
• APRIL 12, 2007: Soon after MAS launched its Firefly airline, Fly Asian Xpress (FAX) director Tony Fernandes announced that FAX wanted to give up the Rural Air Services to MAS because it wanted to concentrate on its budget airline business and the rollout of its proposed long-haul AirAsia X operations.
• MAY 2007: The Government agreed that MAS should take back the rural air service operations. Idris revealed that the Rural Air Services would be operated by a new subsidiary – MASWings – and not Firefly.
• MAY 23, 2007: Tony Fernandes was quoted by The Edge as saying that ECM Libra Avenue Bhd was now seen as a potential target for a reverse takeover (RTO) by his long-haul budget-airline Fly Asian Xpress Sdn Bhd (FAX) towards funding its growth.

  The context: Tony, chief executive of AirAsia Bhd, is also FAX's co-founder and shareholder. He bought into ECM-Libra Avenue recently.

• JUNE 8, 2007: ECM Libra Avenue executive chairman and CEO Kalimullah Masheerul Hassan was quoted by NST-Business Times as saying that news of a possible reverse takeover bid of ECM by FAX "was not true".

Expect more wrigglers over this.