Malaysia Airlines has announced it is retiring the flight number of the plane apparently shot down over Ukraine.

The carrier said in a statement today that from Friday, it will no longer use MH17 to identify any of its Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flights. It said it is doing so "out of respect for our crew and passengers" who were on the doomed flight.

The airline said the new flight number replacing MH17 would be MH19.

It also said there will be no changes to the frequency of its Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur service, and it will continue to operate daily flights between the cities.

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