Mueller at MAS promising, but it's early days yet
KINIBIZ On June 1, 2015, Malaysia Airlines new chief executive officer (CEO) Christoph Mueller held his first press conference with the media to give a broad outline of his plans for a turnaround. His first comments addressed the massive workforce cuts which had been his first order of business to oversee.
“Today is an important day for Malaysia Airlines, it is a happy day because we have sent out 14,000 offer letters. But it is also a sad day, because 6,000 staff will not receive such a letter. I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for all that they have done in helping to build the airline into what we have today,” said Mueller.
In a nutshell, it was a bittersweet day as Malaysian Airline System Bhd began its descent and Malaysian Airline Bhd prepared to take off. That theme will undoubtedly continue at Malaysia Airlines at least for the rest of 2015 and into 2016 as the turnaround is in motion.
According to Mueller ( photo ), several questions were considered during the discussion of what to do with Malaysia Airlines.
The first question was if Malaysia needed a national carrier at all, the answer for which was “yes”. Whether this is an accurate assumption, it will only be established over the next three years - the time period which Mueller said he needs to turn the airline around.
More importantly, what kind of restructuring process was needed to save the carrier? To which the stakeholders decided that a hard reset would be necessary, if there was any chance of Malaysia Airlines surviving.
Enter Christoph Mueller, an airline person who knows how to execute a hard reset at an airline. A person well known for being willing to make hard calls and for being a cost slasher. As was seen during his time at the now-defunct Sabena in Belgium, Germany’s Lufthansa, and Ireland’s Aer Lingus.
For the full story go to KINIBIZ .
This article was written by Stephanie Jacob.
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