By Jason Ng 

Malaysia Airlines said Saturday it would press ahead with its fleet-renewal program as part of a long-running plan to turn around the ailing national flag carrier.

Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, said the airline would take delivery of up to eight Boeing 737-800 jets by 2015. The company currently operates 56 of the narrow-body jets and retired the last of its older model Boeing 737-400 planes Saturday.

"There will be fuel savings of approximately 15% to 20%," Mr. Ahmad Jauhari told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

Fuel is usually an airline's biggest expenditure, typically accounting for about one-third of total operating cost.

Malaysia Airlines has 151 aircraft in its fleet, including Airbus A380, A333 and B777 for long-haul routes; B737-800 for domestic and regional routes; and ATR72-600 turboprops.

It has been replacing its aging fleet in a multibillion-dollar program since 2011. The decommissioning of the older B737 series will reduce its average fleet age to 4.35 years by end of the year from 4.7 years at present.

Malaysia Airlines had been slashing unprofitable routes to keep yields up. It recently began to slash ticket prices at the expense of margin to fill its planes.

Mr. Ahmad Jauhari said the airline would maintain the same frequency of flights and the new B737 fleet would be deployed for flights of up to about five hours.

The airline was struggling to recover from three years of losses even before the disappearance of Flight 370 on March 8. The Boeing 777, carrying 239 people, is still missing and authorities believe the plane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

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