KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 — Malaysia Airlines (MAS) needs a new management with experience in the airline industry if the loss-making national carrier is to be privatised successfully after the two heart-breaking crashes this year, said a key workers union said.

MAS Employees Union (Maseu) — which represents 13,500 employees, or more than half of the company’s workforce — said the airline’s current management, including MAS Group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, lacks the right experience.

“Malaysia Airlines’ management must go,” Maseu executive secretary Mohd Jabbarullah Abd Kadir told The Malay Mail Online in an interview.

“You want to privatise it — the union is not against it. But the bottom line is, people who want to take over must have aviation industry backgrounds,” he added.

Bloomberg reported Monday that MAS will propose turnaround plans to majority stakeholder Khazanah Nasional Berhad this week, including privatisation or filing for bankruptcy.

The restructuring plans for the state-owned carrier, which lost more than RM4 billion over the past three years, come after two of its jets crashed this year.

Flight MH370 disappeared in March and is presumed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. Just four months after, Flight MH17 was shot down last Thursday over eastern Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 on board.

Jabbarullah said MAS going bankrupt would push crucial talent to leave the company, such as engineers, pilots and cabin crew.

“Middle Eastern airlines like Qatar and Etihad all want MAS staff,” he said.

The Maseu official pointed out that training crucial staff takes a long time, such as five years for engineers, two years for pilots and four months for cabin crew.

Jabbarullah also observed that morale was very low among MAS employees.

“There’s no direction. Some say we’ll go bankrupt, some say privatise, some say they’ll cut staff by 2,000, 3,000, 4000… it’s all uncertain. Hanging,” Jabbarullah said.

There are 19,500 MAS staff worldwide, according to the Maseu executive secretary.

National Union of Flight Attendants Malaysia (Nufam) president Ismail Nasaruddin declined to comment, saying it was still “too early” to talk about restructuring plans.

A MAS air steward, who did not want to be named, said morale among his colleagues had plumbed to new depths after the two recent disasters.

“It has been a great loss to all of us, directly or indirectly,” added the 29-year-old

MAS lost 12 and 15 crew members respectively on MH370 and MH17.