Micromanaging chief is a breath of fresh air at Malaysia Airlines
NEW CEO Christoph Mueller' plans for troubled Malaysia Airlines - including a new brand, a smaller fleet and one third less staff - is widely seen as a promising blueprint for a fresh start.
The 52-year old German has successfully restructured Ireland’s state-backed Aer Lingus and spearheaded a revamp at Lufthansa. He has also already impressed in his new job with his micromanaging ways, according to one long-time Malaysia Airlines executive.
Even so, many analysts worry that the state-owned carrier’s long history of mismanagement and government interference, and its severely damaged brand after two plane disasters last year, will be too much to overcome.
“You can’t parachute in someone irrespective of how sterling his previous record shows and expect him to do a job with an airline that’s been abused for two decades,” said Shukor Yusof, an analyst at Malaysian aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.
In addition to an unprecedented need to build a new brand after the disappearance of flight MH370 and the shooting down of MH17, Mueller must slash costs at a time when the airline faces competition from other carriers and airlines.
Forced to fly to unprofitable destinations to promote Malaysia’s foreign policy agenda, keep on more staff than needed due to powerful unions and to hand out contracts to politically connected firms, the airline has been saddled with a cost base 20 per cent bigger than its peers, analysts say.
“I’m hired to run the new company entirely on commercial terms and there’s very little margin for error,” Mueller said.
Mueller added that he was aiming for a much smaller network and fleet and a sharper focus on cost-cutting – some of the strategies he pursued at Aer Lingus which was on the verge of collapse when he took over in 2009.
Efforts to rationalise Malaysia Airlines fleet have hit speed bumps with the carrier so far unsuccessful in finding buyers for two A380 aircraft that it has up for sale.
