Malaysia Airlines (MAS) CEO Peter Bellew has denied former the claim of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad that the airline was trying to please Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak at the expense of business considerations.

Bellew said MAS had been looking to replace various aircraft in its fleet for some time, as their leases near the end.

“I have read everything on the blog; some of it has been reported to me. A lot of it is quite inaccurate, and nobody contacted me or our company to check any of the stuff that was on there.

“I believe the essence of it was that somebody said we are not buying the aircraft and other kinds of stuff. We do plan to conclude the deal to buy the aircraft directly off Boeing…