Malaysia Airlines’ boss seems to be feeling confident for the first time in around two years after reporting ‘continued progress’ in select areas of the business.
In a quarterly update, Christoph Mueller, CEO of Malaysia Airlines, revealed that the carrier is seeing “steady progress” despite “a challenging environment” thanks to an ongoing restructure, which commenced in May last year to increase the airline’s competitiveness following the two 2014 air tragedies and financial loss.
At the time of the announcement, the CEO said Malaysia Airlines was spending 20 percent more than its competitors and a new business model would help reduce costs while still improving areas of the business.
Since launching the major restructure, the carrier has made necessary redundancies and renegotiated contracts, suspended select routes such as the Brisbane service, and closed a few lounges, including the one in Perth.
Malaysia Airlines has also entered a new agreement with Emirates to codeshare on Kuala Lumpur-Dubai and tap into the UAE carrier’s vast network. So far, the agreement allows Malaysia Airlines customers to travel onwards from Dubai to 11 destinations, and this will expand to 30 in Europe, Middle East, Canada and Africa over the next few months.
New menus on its aircraft have also helped to entice more travellers along with the introduction of hot meals on short haul economy flights.
While Malaysia Airlines has withheld exact figures, it says so far changes have increased revenue per available seat kilometre and resulted better efficiency, particularly in on-time performance.
“Although we have a long way to go and areas for improvement, we are making steady progress in the restructuring.”
Christoph Mueller, Malaysia Airlines Group Chief Executive
“We are focused on rebuilding momentum with out restructuring in 2016.”
“Diligent execution on efficiency and tighter cost controls has already produced results which have seen us emerging leaner and more focused.”
Over the next few months, Malaysia Airlines will continue to focus on reducing costs while also rolling out its new Business Class seats across the A330-300 fleet. Read on