KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 — The new Malaysia Airlines Berhad will continue to hobble along if its owner Khazanah Nasional persists in putting the former chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya on the flag carrier’s board, PKR’s Nurul Izzah Anwar claimed today.

Pointing out that carrier had bled billions of ringgit in the four years Jauhari had captained the company, the federal opposition lawmaker voiced concern that the new CEO Christoph Mueller will have a “free hand” to turn MAS around.

“If the appointment is to ‘reward’ Ahmad (Jauhari), the message being sent is that failure is no bar to being rewarded,” she said in a statement.

She noted that in Jauhari’s first year as MAS CEO in 2011, the airline lost RM2.52 billion.

The amount was reduced in the subsequent years, but Nurul Izzah said the company remained in the red and was forced to delist in December last year.

She described Khazanah’s decision as “scandalous”, pointing out that while 6,000 long-serving MAS employees had been sacked this month as part of the revamp, Jauhari would oversee the new CEO’s decisions on a director’s pay and perks.

“The further message is that the ‘new’ MAS, despite all talk of change, will be burdened with baggage from the past,” she said.

The Lembah Pantai MP demanded that Khazanah — the majority shareholder in the airline — rescind its “atrocious decision”.

“If indeed MAS is to make a clean break and chart a new course, it must cut links from its past,” Nurul Izzah said.

Khazanah took MAS private last year, as part of a RM6 billion restructuring and is targeting to return the carrier to profit within three years.

MAS has been bleeding for years before Jauhari took over and carried out a series of turnaround plans which failed to lift it out of the red before the airlines was hit by twin air disaster last year.

Jauhari stepped down as CEO on April 30 and resume his duties as a non-executive director effective June 1.