KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines Bhd’s (MAB) main priority in the next six months is to implement and stick to strategies laid out in its turnaround plan.
“Every turnaround plan has a lot of moving parts. It is really to follow through on the plan,” said outgoing chief executive officer Christoph Mueller.
He said there were about 220 projects taking place under the Malaysia Airlines restructuring plan.
“Some (of the projects) are ahead of the plan, some are exactly on plan and some are delayed, suspended or postponed. It would be unnatural if everything is on track, right? But on the better part, we are in the green. I review (the progress on the projects) every week with my programme manager,” he told Business Times in an interview recently.
The national carrier is looking forward to implement its new passenger service system that will help cut cost and drive revenue, as well as extend its customer reach.
It has signed some deals, followed through on its fuel conservation programme and implemented new material management system in maintenance and engineering.
Without disclosing details, Mueller said Malaysia Airlines had devised a new strategy in September last year.
“Of course, I cannot explain it in detail because our competitors desperately want to know my strategy. But I believe it all boils down to serving the customers, and to serve particularly different groups with very individualised offerings.
“It’s a long list of things but it’s important that each of our 14,000 professionals knows exactly where the place is and how he or she can contribute to the strategy.
“And that requires from my side a lot of communication, a lot of talking to the people to explain the overall plan and how they fit into the picture.
“Because it is important and it is like a soccer team, you know. It’s not about a single person, it’s about the team and if you want to play a good game you need to know your counterpart in the organisation and that requires me to really explain and lead from the front.”
In terms of pricing, he said: “We do not lower our prices because it so much fun to lower our costs.
“We do lower our costs so that we can offer cheaper tickets and that will make travelling with Malaysia Airlines more attractive because on top of that, we offer better services than our competitor. That’s basically our strategy,” said the corporate restructuring specialist.
Mueller, who has helped turn around Ireland’s loss-making Aer Lingus within a year, said Malaysia Airlines would serve markets where Malaysian businesses had counterparts as part of its strategies to boost the economy.
“This is important to bring tourists into the country.”
He, however, expressed his disappointment on the two-year contract awarded by the Tourism and Culture Ministry to Singapore Airlines instead of the national carrier.
“I’m sad that the government has awarded the tourism contract to Singapore Airlines, and so are my 14,000 colleagues.
“But we still try our best to be the leading inbound tourism carrier for Malaysia and to remain as the leading inbound carrier,” added Mueller.