KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — Criticised for the slow dissemination of information, Malaysia Airlines has assured the families of the 239 people onboard flight MH370 that they will be the first to know if the plane is found.

Telling the anxious families that taking care of them was MAS’s “first priority”, the airline’s group chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya also pleaded with them to allow the airline to “take care” of the group, saying that it was sharing all information available.

“In fact, we made a commitment to all our (passengers’) next of kin, if we locate the aircraft, looking at authorities here, the next of kin will be the first to be notified, not the media,” he said in an interview with news channel China Central Television (CCTV).

During the interview lasting close to 11 minutes, Ahmad insisted that MAS was not hiding information despite allegations that the company had not shared all the detail it has on MH370.

“We have shared everything as a company we know to our next of kin, not only in Beijing but also in Malaysia.

“I don’t think we are hiding anything. There’s no reason to hide anything,” he said in the video recording posted online yesterday.

He also denied CCTV’s anchor James Chau point of speculation that MAS’ huge financial losses last year had led to cutback in safety measures and was linked to the missing MH370 flight.

“Malaysia Airlines do not compromise safety. We will spend whatever is necessary in order to make it a safe operations for our passengers,” Ahmad replied.

Last month, MAS said it had suffered a RM1.17 billion loss in 2013, with the company also reporting losses of RM2.5 billion and RM433 million in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

The company, in which Malaysia’s state investment arm Khazanah Nasional owns a 70 per cent stake, had posted a net profit of RM237 million in 2010.

The search for the missing Boeing 777-200ER plane used in the MH370 flight has now entered its eighth day, with focus shifted away from the South China Sea after new information was revealed yesterday.

Based on the new data from the plane’s last communication with a satellite, the multinational search is now turned towards two locations -  the “southern corridor” from Indonesia to the Indian Ocean off Australia or the “northern corridor” stretching from the borders of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand.