KINIBIZ Not since a homemade video by a Malaysia Airlines steward having his way with some stewardesses over a decade ago has the national carrier attracted so much attention as when Chef Wan (full name Redzuawan Ismail) posted a picture of the nasi lemak he was served on a flight of the national airline.

The popular chef lamented what he called was nasi lemak telanjang (nude), denuded of the usual fried peanuts, anchovies, sliced cucumber or kangkung. All Malaysia Airlines’ corporate problems and its losses amounting to billions upon billions of ringgit did not attract as much attention as this episode.

Malaysiakini reported that “Malaysians take their nasi lemak seriously. So much so, in fact, that the act of a celebrity chef in uploading a picture of a rather bare looking nasi lemak served onboard a Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight, has struck a chord with many.

“He (Chef Wan) uploaded the picture on social site Instagram, which showed a box of nasi lemak with half a boiled egg cutting a lonely figure on top...”

Never mind that MAS is undercutting fares, reducing its yield (the return on its available seats multiplied by kilometres flown, a measure of pricing) even as it fills up its planes to unheard of levels in terms of load factor (a measure of capacity utilisation), as explained here .

Never mind that it continues to lose money as it persists with this insane pursuit of loading up the planes cheaply, charging fares often lower than those of budget airlines.

Never mind that it cuts corners as a full service airline to satisfy this insatiable craving for better capacity utilisation.

But why, oh why, do you have to scrimp and save and do something so sacrilegious as to heap insult and injury upon one of our national dishes loved by one and all Malaysians, yes, the humble nasi lemak?

How can you serve Malaysia Airlines’ customers a “naked” nasi lemak when no one down on terra firma would dream of doing that?

For the complete article go to KiniBiz .

This article was written by P Gunasegaram.