I don't know..but if i owned a medium sized bloated, unprofitable airline with an old fleet of beat up aircraft that was politically difficult to close down or make efficient i may be tempted to start up a nice shiny new airline without any of the problems the other one had and then let the old one die off without investing any more dinars into it.
Problem solved, nice new airline built from scratch to compete in a modern marketplace and the old flag carrier that was unable to adapt to changing market conditions a simple note in th history books....one scenario that comes to mind.