No licence for MYAirline until ticket refunds and staff salaries paid, says Loke

PUTRAJAYA: No air service licence (ASL) – conditional or otherwise – will be issued to MYAirline, which went bust last year, until all refunds are made to its customers and deals with former staff are fulfilled, says Anthony Loke.

The Transport Minister also said he would be meeting with MYAirline and Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) to find out what the airline had to offer and its current status.

He was speaking to the media after a 2024 New Year Mandate to the staff of the Transport Ministry here on Friday (Jan 12).

A BK report, quoting sources, said that MYAirline Sdn Bhd had secured and signed a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) in late December 2023 with an investor from the Middle East and applied for a conditional ASL from the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM).

“The ministry will be meeting with MYAirline later today (Jan 12) to find out what they have to offer, what their proposal is and their current status.

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“There are conditions before we can consider an ASL for MYAirline.

“Firstly, they would have to make every effort to make sure all the refunds must be realised and everyone must have been refunded.

“Secondly, whatever deals which have been made to the previous staff must have been fulfilled.

“Without fulfilling these two conditions, there is no way to consider an ASL for the airline,” said Loke.

He further stated that all the other terms for safety and terms of applications would have to be complied.

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“The policy that the airline must be 51% owned by Malaysians and the rest of the conditions must be met,” said Loke.

As the new investor was now on board, MYAirline was believed to have applied to Mavcom for a conditional ASL thereafter uplifting the Air Operator Certificate (AOC) from the CAAM before obtaining a full ASL to operate, reported BK.

Mavcom was reported to have informed the media earlier Friday that it would only initiate the evaluation process upon receipt of a complete submission.

MYAirline suspended its operations on Oct 12 last year, leaving about 125,000 passengers, with tickets worth RM20mil in the lurch.

It has yet to pay the salaries of about 900 employees and the reimbursement of 117,000 passengers is still ongoing.

According to Mavcom, as at Jan 8, 2023, a total of 4,304 consumers were assisted with refunds through the chargeback process while some have started to receive refunds from their respective banks.