Once they have managed to make it through the pandemic, Khazanah managing director Shahril Ridza Ridzuan expected global airlines, including Malaysia Airlines Bhd, to begin talks on bringing in other shareholders.

“Once Covid-19 is over and once there is stabilisation in the aviation industry, we should explore again the question of whether the government should be the sole owner of Malaysia Airlines or whether we can bring in other partnerships,” he said on BFM’s Breakfast Grille programme today.

Shahril also said the pandemic had revealed the problem of an oversupply of five competing airlines in the Malaysian aviation industry over the last decade.

“There are five airlines with an increasing number of planes and seats and, because of that, every airline in 2019, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, was either losing money or close to losing money for the Malaysian operations,” he said.

He said Khazanah predicted “fairly dismal prospects” for the industry until at least 2024 and expected to support Malaysia Airlines’ parent company, Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), for the next five years.

On whether Khazanah would inject more money into MAG, Shahril said “there was no guarantee” about this as it all depended on how the country would address the issue of oversupply post-Covid-19.

“Whether it’s going to be enough will depend on whether there’s a return to what happened pre-Covid-19 – with an unconstrained supply being allowed back and destroying value for the future.

“If that happens, then basically every airline would be back in the same situation,” he said.

Last month, MAG obtained court approval in the UK to begin restructuring plans, with some RM3.6 billion in capital from Khazanah to reduce the company’s liabilities by over RM15 billion.

Khazanah also recently revealed that it had recorded profits of RM2.9 billion in 2020, a drop from the RM7.4 billion it achieved the year before.