KUALA LUMPUR: Peter Bellew, 51, the affable group managing director and chief executive officer of Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAS), is happy to see smiles returning to the faces of staff at the national carrier .
The Irishman took over in July last year when staff morale and confidence was at a low following the tragedies of flights MH370 and MH17, a challenging business environment and sudden departure of his predecessor Christoph Mueller.
“There’s no group of people in history, not in any business, (that) has ever been through difficult times like what the MAS family had been through. It’s just beyond precedence.
“For the last six months, it’s been a lot about telling people it’s okay to smile again; it’s okay to chill out. We’re going to be all right,” he said.
“It’s (about) reassuring the family of employees that we can do it. It’s also about having some fun. I may seem like a miserable grudgingly bad-tempered old-fashioned person but really beneath that, there’s a singing fun-loving guy,” said Bellew, who played the guitar and sang with the staff at a recent pre-Christmas townhall session.
“Maybe it’s unusual in MAS to have a CEO who practises open communication… CEOs of MAS haven’t done that before. I don’t think too many CEOs in Malaysia do it, full stop.”
Moving forward, MAS intends to maintain its employee count at about 14,000, although some would be redeployed to other businesses in the Malaysian Aviation Group company.