We all have seen Malaysia Airlines tumble and fall quite hard in the past few years – and the incidents of MH370 and MH17 have not helped the airline in any way.
With CEO Christoph Mueller bluntly stating that Malaysia Airlines is “technically bankrupt”, it seems there is a lot of work to be done to drag the airline back into the money.
Malaysia Airlines Airbus A380 taxing at Heathrow, preparing to return to Kuala Lumpar – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
One of the first actions has been to cut 6,000 jobs from the workforce and its network to looked at carefully for efficiencies and changes, with the aim to initiate the “hard reset” on the 1st September 2015 when the new airline – “Malaysia Airlines Berhad” takes over.
Already, new management and new contracts for the remaining 14,000 staff are in place, with old company to transfer its operating certificate to the new company – as well as its assets and staffing.
Along with planned cost reductions of 20%, there’s a fair amount of slashing and reduction to be done.
Malaysia Airlines is planning to retain its membership of the oneworld alliance.
Malaysia Airlines has work to do – and hasn’t got the time to do it in. Already, its route network is fragile, with some route frequencies to be cut, and others to be abandoned – leaving them to their oneworld partners. Services and routes remain unaffected for now.
Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines fleet of Boeing 777s and Airbus A330s will receive a new business class cabin, replacing the lie-angle (or wedgie) seats with a full flat product. The Airbus A380 will be retained on a twice-daily Kuala Lumpur t0 Heathrow service.
Similarly, a three-class product will be maintained on long haul services. Some lounges will be shut, whilst others will be refurbished.
However, whilst the airline remains at the top end of the full-service chain, it faces major competition from the bottom with Air Asia and Air Asia X – and at the top from Singapore Airlines with their larger network.Is there still a place for Malaysia Airlines and its in-flight Satay? I hope so – but I’ll be watching carefully the results of the changes that are coming up….
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