Malaysia Airlines on Tuesday expressed “enormous sorrow” for passengers of a missing plane believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, amid moves to offer support to relatives.
“We all feel enormous sorrow and pain,” Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, the airline’s chief executive officer, told reporters a day after Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that investigators concluded the aircraft crashed at sea and its passengers were lost.
Mr. Yahya said the company has deployed more than 700 counsellors to provide support to more than 900 relatives of the 239 people on board the Beijing-bound flight that disappeared after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8.
Several counsellors sent to China, where passengers’ relatives protested on Tuesday about what they called lack of information on the search from authorities.
Nearly 100 relatives and their supporters marched to the Malaysia Embassy in Beijing, wearing white T-shirts that read “Let’s pray for MH370” as they held banners and chanted.
“Tell the truth! Return our relatives!” they shouted. There was a heavy police presence at the embassy when the group arrived, and journalists were kept away.
Malaysia Airlines has also given initial financial assistance of 5,000 dollars per passenger to the next of kin and additional assistance was being prepared, he said.
The airline would assist families who wanted to go to Australia once there is “definitive evidence” about the missing plane in the area.
Mr. Yahya also said passengers’ relatives had been billeted in remote hotels on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur to ensure their comfort and privacy, rather than to isolate them from the media.
