Hari-hari MAS

One of my instructors once recalled the events prior to the Malaya-Singapore Airways (MSA) tear up into MAS and SIA. He told us that then Deputy PM Tun Ismail was the one who met with some of MSA staff in Singapore to talk about the idea of having a national airline for Malaysia. That was around mid 1972. Tun Ismail briefed and poached these future 'co-founders' of MAS. My instructor went into details about the story, including the piece about the masquerade they put up to keep things below MSA's radar. Tun Ismail used his powers to immediately issue them Malaysian citizenship. If you care to read the news, applying for a Malaysian citizenship is an ordeal to many. Just some years back I read about an elderly foreigner who was awarded citizenship just days before he/she died!

Anyway, in my instructors' accounts, they mass-resigned from MSA and moved to KL in June 1972. They helped set up the airline, from scratch until it's ready to soar the skies on October 1972. Tun Ismail himself launched MAS. Qantas was also involved in the set up (the ties continue, today they help sponsor MAS to join oneworld). This instructor said that MAS had its most glorious days when Tan Sri Abd Aziz was MD. Once, Tan Sri Aziz wanted to visit one of the hangars. Of course, the managers didn't want to look bad they ordered the hangars to be cleaned. So when the MD came down, he noticed that the floor was shiny wet. Instead of complimenting, he was angered. "So if I never came here to visit, you would never clean the mess, is it?". He then said that he would come back later, this time without prior notice. Say, with an MD that dedicated, which company would have problem? Never in those years the company skipped bonus.

Nevertheless, many of them earliest staff took good care of MAS. "We were nothing, we were bullied (by the older, bigger airlines), but we went through". To an extent, they might have regarded MAS as their own child. They watched it grew. From Fokker 27 to Boeing 777. From Hangar 01 to Hangar 06. From Subang to Sepang. From striking red wau logo to the blue and red one.

Now that their child is sick and ill, wonder what do they feel?