KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines Bhd parent Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) is likely to announce an internal reorganisation by next month that will see three chief executive officer (CEO) and several chief operating officer (COO) posts being created.
The New Straits Times learnt that the CEOs would oversee the group's three business portfolios - airlines, aviation services as well as e-commerce and travel services - while the COOs would manage the day-to-day operations of the divisions under the three portfolios.
The restructuring comes at the time when demand for air travel globally is booming amid lack of aircraft in service, and Malaysia Airlines is recovering well and in a strong cash position to weather economic uncertainties.
"The restructuring is for the group to realign its businesses and have key personnel to look at each of the divisions vertically," said sources who declined to be named.
Under the new plan, the three CEOs will be reporting directly to MAG group CEO, Captain Izham Ismail while the COOs will report to the CEO of their respective division.
Malaysia Airlines, FireFly, MASwings and AMAL by Malaysia Airlines fall under MAG's airline business portfolio.
MAB Kargo, AeroDarat Services, MAB Engineering and MAB Academy are part of MAG's aviation services division while its e-commerce and travel services cover Enrich and MHholidays.
MAB Pesawat and MAB Leasing as well as other divisions such as finance, human resource, and general administration will continue to be directly under MAG.
Currently, MAG's senior management are made up of the group CEO, group chief financial officer, group chief operations officer, group chief strategy officer, group chief human capital officer and group chief marketing and customer experience officer.
It also includes CEOs of AeroDarat Services, MAB Academy and Firefly as well as COOs of MASwings, MAB Kargo and AMAL by Malaysia Airlines.
"Now there are a few CEOs for certain divisions and COOs for other divisions. The reorganisation would bring a leaner structure to the group where the COOs report to the three CEOs and the CEOs report directly to Izham," the sources said.
Izham, who started his career with Malaysia Airlines as a pilot, took over as MAG group CEO in 2017 when Malaysia Airlines particularly was bleeding losses.
He steered the airline to profitability and rebranded it as a premium national carrier.
In June this year, Izham told the NST that Malaysia Airlines had been cash positive since October 2021 and was in a very strong position financially to ride through economic downturn.