Malaysia Airlines posts worst quarterly loss since end-2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Malaysia Airlines reported on Friday its worst quarterly loss since late 2011, as passenger numbers and yields dropped further after the loss of two jets in separate incidents this year.

In a filing to the stock exchange, Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS) said its third-quarter net loss widened to 576.1 million ringgit ($170.39 million) from 375.4 million ringgit in the same period a year earlier. This is the worst quarterly loss for the airline since October-December 2011.

The results are the last for MAS as a public company and underscore the challenges its majority shareholder, state fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd, faces in restructuring the company when it takes it private later this year.

MAS' business was devastated this year by the disappearance of Flight MH370 in March and the shooting down of Flight MH17 over Ukraine in July. (1 US dollar = 3.3810 Malaysian ringgit) (Reporting By Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah and Yantoultra Ngui; Additional Reporting By Tripti Kalro in BANGALORE; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Muralikumar Anantharaman)