Where is Malaysian Airlines headed?

The twin 2014 aircraft losses and subsequent loss of life tragically befallen on Malaysian Airlines and its passengers looked like it may bankrupt the airline. They have rebounded only to lurch to another disaster by not allowing checked-in baggage carried to Europe citing unseasonably strong headwinds on the routes.

Full fare airlines, already under increasing pressure from price conscious passengers patronising budget carriers are struggling. Malaysian Airlines was already a marginal business, this comes at the expense of a number of national airlines; this is a shame as I had always liked Malaysian Airlines service.

With passengers, corporate clients and staff abandoning the airline, where to from here? While Malaysian Airlines kept flying, it did so with empty planes for some time, no doubt they were carrying a fair amount of freight during that time to cover costs.

Corporate level decision making, the failure to immediately fully inform the families of MH370 passengers what was happening and the fateful decision to allow the MH17 flight path over hostile territory when leading competitors had chosen alternate routes all points to systematic management failure.

What the management now can't afford to do is allow empty aircraft to continuity take to the skies. They need to ditch uneconomical routes, scale back operations and concentrate only on profitable services, they need to contract and survive.

Maybe it is time for the Malaysian government to liquidate their holdings forcing the airline into bankruptcy and allow budget airlines to fill the void. The other alternate is re-nationalise the airline - this is probably not the best option.