Malaysia Airlines, which has been making losses for several years, urgently needs to reinvent itself and shake off an image that is now strongly linked to the two terrible accidents that plunged it into mourning last year - the disappearance of the aircraft on the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route in March and the destruction by a missile of the aircraft operating on the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur route over Ukraine in July. MAS, whose assets are now in the hands of the state-owned fund manager, Khazanah Nasional.
An administrator has just been appointed, who will have complete freedom to carry out the necessary restructuring. This will involve, in particular, the probable redundancy of a third of the workforce (i.e. 8,000 people), the reduction in the number of employees and the reduction in the number of jobs. fleet reduction from 96 aircraft to less than 80, with the sale or lease of a large part of the long-haul fleet, including the emblematic Airbus A380s. The final stage of this restructuring, a change of company name. A symbolic measure, to be sure, but one that speaks volumes about the intentions of the new CEO.
The future Malaysia Airlines entity will refocus primarily on regional and domestic routes, abandoning its ambition to be a major player in global air transport. The long-haul network - often developed for reasons of political prestige rather than economic rationality - will therefore be the first to be sacrificed. This strategy is reminiscent of the restructuring of the Belgian national carrier Sabena more than fifteen years ago.. Of which Christoph Mueller was one of the CEOs...
How deep will the cuts be? In recent years, Malaysia Airlines has already closed its New York, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Stockholm, Zurich and Rome stations, among others. The pruning is set to continue. The Australian network could lose two or three destinations, and be restructured around services to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and possibly Brisbane.
MAS' presence in Europe is also in question. The airline, which now only serves London, Paris, Amsterdam and Istanbul - it has just closed its Frankfurt stopover - could abandon one or two destinations, or even leave the European continent altogether to be represented only by code-share flights. London, however, has the best chance of survival, along with Paris. The British capital because it is the first destination in Europe for Malaysians, and because it makes Kuala Lumpur a transit stop on the "Kangaroo Route" linking London to Australia - as well as to New Zealand. The Paris stopover could also be preserved thanks to the excellent network of connections at Roissy CDG to Europe, Africa and the Americas.
However, MAS is in the process of repositioning itself as a a regional companyThe company is abandoning the idea of positioning Kuala Lumpur as a major hub capable of competing with intercontinental hubs such as Bangkok and Singapore. MAS, on the other hand, is banking on regional and domestic development, and has already announced plans to increase its capacity from 6% to 8% a year in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. This is where the potential for growth appears to be greatest, despite intense competition from low-cost airlines.
