Kuala Lumpur, 10 July: A Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leader today questioned the Federal Government’s special treatment towards Malindo Air despite the audit eligibility of the airline company to acquire the Air Services Licence is still pending.
Malindo Air was launched on 12 September 2012 by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak despite the operation date announced was May 2014.
Meanwhile, according to the Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara, Tony Pua, the licence issued by the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) was only given on 28 February this year.
He said that the action was entirely contrary to the statement issued previously by the Minister of Transport regarding the criteria of issuing air service licences, which is to ‘pass the lead technical audit’.
“This means that Najib launched and announced the operation date before the DCA could carry out an audit of the company’s entitlement to obtain the licence.
“This incident provides strong evidence that Malindo Air is given extraordinary support from the Prime Minister so much so that all other weaknesses of the company was ignored,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.
Elaborating, he said that the main shareholder of the airline company is National Aerospace and Defence Industries Sdn Bhd (Nadi) was found in violation of the Companies Act 1965 for not filing their financial statements since 2007.
In fact, the joint venture company, PT Lion Group, is an airline company which has a very dubious track record in Indonesia and internationally.
“Is the ministry aware that Lion Mentari Air is an airline banned in the European Union due to safety weaknesses and because they do not meet the standards that allows for flight.
“Even Lion Air’s service was suspended for a few months in July 2011 on the account of bad performance.
“Issues that have yet to be taken into account are the many accidents that occurred before 2011,” he added.
