Malaysia Airlines (MAS) cannot recover if it continues to have a bloated workforce, according to the head of a local think-tank.

Datuk Dr Chin Yew Sin, who is President of the International Strategy Research Centre, lauded Khazanah Nasional Bhd Managing Director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar for taking a firm stand in cutting 6,000 jobs as part of the sovereign wealth fund's 12-point Recovery Plan for the ailing national carrier.

READ ALSO: New MAS will need less staff, say analysts

"The Recovery Plan provides for a more ideal 14,000 workforce size, and retaining the 6,000 staff earmarked to leave is a recipe for failure.

"This time, it is no longer the financial restructurings as it had undergone before.

"This is a comprehensive and holistic restructuring to stop the national airline from haemorrhaging cash," Chin said.

"This is the final call for MAS after three restructuring exercises. International routes are now being cut.

"More international routes are expected to be taken out as MAS focuses on regional routes while other structural changes are in store in moving towards more profitable regional and domestic routes," he said.

He pointed out that cutting these international routes would not stop MAS from having its presence internationally as MAS is part of the OneWorld Alliance.

"The New MAS cannot be what the Old MAS was, it needs a structural as well as change in its work culture.

"And importantly, the key to turning around MAS is getting the stakeholders on your side i.e. the workers, unions, government, suppliers and all those in MAS’ eco-system," said Chin, who is a member of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission's Consultation and Prevention advisory panel.

"This time around, the Government has the political will to turn around MAS. The workforce has to be reduced in order to save MAS.

"I hope the in-house unions will be more sensible and understand the Government's decision to rightsize the airline as this is the last chance to save MAS."

Chin said MAS' ending the Frankfurt route effective May 29 is just the beginning of the shrinking of several more international routes including Dubai, Paris and Amsterdam, and the restructuring of the national carrier in its early stages should not be distracted by requests from 'third parties.'

Among other things, Khazanah’s Recovery Plan provides the necessary enabling framework for change, delisting of MAS, moving its headquarters from Subang to Sepang, the MAS Act already passed in Parlliament and the creation of a New MAS to prepare and execute its own detailed Business Turnaround Plan.

Khazanah, which has a 100 per cent stake in MAS, will inject RM6 billion into the national carrier, which is expected to turn its first profit in 2017.

MAS currently flies to around 80 destinations across Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

OneWorld membership brings together 15 of the world's leading airlines including MAS and around 30 affiliates, serving more than 1,000 destinations in 155 countries and carrying more than 510 million passengers a year -- almost a thousand boarding a OneWorld flight every minute, 24 hours a day.

It operates a combined fleet totalling some 3,500 aircraft and offering more than 14,250 flights a day -- an average of one OneWorld airline departure or arrival somewhere around the world every three seconds around the clock.

MAS's entry adds 16 new destinations into Oneworld's route map, strengthening the alliance's connectivity between key business cities in Asia.

The International Strategy Research Centre, a think-tank that engages in political, economic and cultural research, was set up 16 years ago by a group of academics.