REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MMUBAI - Malaysia Airlines, the operator of Flight MH370 that went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on Saturday, has established a record as one of the Asia-Pacific's best full-service carriers in terms of safety and service despite some recent financial problems.

The Kuala Lumpur-based carrier competes with AirAsia domestically, and with the likes of AirAsia X, Emirates, Singapore Airlines , Thai Airways and Cathay Pacific on international routes. The airline, part of the Oneworld alliance that includes British Airways and Qantas, has 88 aircraft in its fleet, including Airbus A330s and A380s, and Boeing 777-200s and 737s, according to its website.

They include 15 777-200ERs, one of which was involved in Saturday's disappearance. These aircraft are deployed on its long-range services within the Asia-Pacific and to Europe. Its fleet of 777-200ERs has an average age of 14.2 years, according to airfleets.com, an authoritative website that tracks airline fleets, making it one of the oldest such fleets of 777-200s in the world.

Malaysia Airlines gave the registration number of the aircraft as 9M-MRO, indicating the plane is 11 years and eight months old. It was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines, an airline official confirmed by telephone from Kuala Lumpur.

It was unclear if the age of the plane had any bearing on its disappearance, given authorities were still trying to determine the flight's presumed crash site in the South China Sea on Saturday. The airline was set to order Airbus A330 or A350 aircraft to start replacing some of its older 777s from 2016, with the management having identified fleet replacement as a key plank of its plan to turn around the loss-making airline.

In February, the airline reported a net loss of 343.4 million ringgit ($104 million) for the three months ended December 2013, its fourth consecutive quarterly loss. Its full-year loss of 1.17 billion ringgit was nearly three times higher than in 2012.

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