KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia Airlines (MAS), which will be delisted from the stock exchange by the end of the year for a complete overhaul, said losses widened to RM576.1mil for the three months ended Sept 30.
The national carrier had been struggling to attract passengers amid intense competition in the industry, with the situation for MAS made worse by the MH370 and MH17 incidents.
Falling jet fuel prices provided little relief for the carrier.
"After accounting for depreciation, amortisation and impairment of RM218.4mil (S$84 million), unrealised foreign exchange loss of RM42.2mil, finance costs of RM123.8mil and fair value change of derivative of RM18.1mil, the group registered a net loss of RM576.1mil for the third quarter ended Sept 30 compared with to a loss of RM375.4mil previously," MAS said in the notes accompanying its financial results.
The group's cash balance as at Sept 30 was RM1.5bil.
This would be MAS' last quarterly financial results on Bursa Malaysia after controlling shareholder Khazanah Nasional Bhd obtained minority shareholders' approval to take the airline private for RM1.4bil.
The airline said that quarterly revenue fell 13.36 per cent to RM3.38bil, from RM3.9bil in the previous corresponding quarter.
"While declining fuel prices have helped stem losses in our quarterly results, MAS continues to struggle despite efforts to reduce the financial bleeding,'' it said.
Certain markets, particularly China, continued to pose challenges to return to previous levels.
"However, we are encouraged with the recovery in other markets as reflected in the higher new booking intakes system-wide compared with the previous year," it said.
MAS said that with the privatisation and transformation of the airline continuing to gather pace, the group remained focused on driving revenue through aggressive marketing and promotions, better capacity management and optimising asset utilisation.
Passenger capacity increased 2 per cent during the quarter, but the group's operating revenue decreased by 12 per cent to RM3.3bil compared with the corresponding quarter last year.
Seat factor declined by 11.5 percentage points to 73 per cent, while passenger yield declined by 2 per cent to 21.9 sen.
Weak operational performance means the airline did not benefit from the falling jet fuel prices that helped lower its operating cost by 7.5 per cent during the quarter.
For the nine months ended Sept 30, MAS' net loss widened to RM1.32bil from RM830.2mil a year earlier.
Revenue stood at RM10.57bil, down 5.75 per cent against RM11.2bil a year ago.
The carrier's operating revenue decreased by 5 per cent to RM10.19bil compared with the previous financial period.
Seat factor and yield fell 6.3 percentage points and 5 per cent respectively mainly due to the continued poor market sentiment as a result of the disappearance of flight MH370 coupled with the loss of MH17 and intense competition, both domestically and internationally.
MAS said its operating expenses for the financial period were marginally lower by 0.2 per cent. Fuel cost was up 7 per cent due to capacity increase, and the weakening of the ringgit against the US dollar was offset by the lower non-fuel cost of 5 per cent.