MAS warns to sell Airbus

MAS warns to sell Airbus

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS), peeved with France for not granting it more flights to Paris, threatened yesterday to drop planes manufactured by Airbus Industrie from its fleet.

"We have bought a lot of aircraft from France but we did not get any extra flights," MAS chairman Tajudin Ramli told reporters.

"It's not good enough to fly to Paris twice a week. We want to go twice a day to Paris," he said. "If we get the right price, we'll sell off all our Airbus."

MAS bought 10 Airbus A330s from the Toulouse, France-based European aircraft consortium last year under a US$550 million deal.

The French stake in the consortium is represented by state- owned Aerospatiale. Other members are British Aerospace Plc, Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace and Casa of Spain.

Tajudin said MAS has been requesting additional flights to Paris since signing the purchase order with Airbus "but the French government has not responded to our request".