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MAB names Bellew as CEO, eyes new ASEAN routes
July 8th 2016
Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) has promoted former COO, Peter Bellew, to CEO. Bellew has replaced Christoph Mueller, who resigned earlier this year after less than a year in the top job, citing personal reasons. Read More » Initially, Mueller had said he would stay until September, but he then was placed on leave and stepped down from the carrier’s board last Friday.
"Bellew has been integral to the ongoing execution of the turnaround plan for Malaysia Airlines," the carrier's sole shareholder, state-fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad, said in a statement, adding the airline’s turnaround plan was on track, with "encouraging signs of progress thus far." MAB hopes to return to profitability in 2018.
"For the company and the stakeholders, it would be an extension of their turnaround plans because Bellew was the person who was doing much of the day to day operations," said Shukor Yusof, founder of Malaysia-based consultancy Endau Analytics.
In Malaysia, multiple camps called for a local Malay successor to Mueller after the German turnaround specialist recently went on German radio complaining about MAB workers sleeping on the job and having "nothing to do".
Malaysia’s flight attendant union responded by saying Mueller did not understand Malaysian work culture.
Meanwhile, new MAB chief Bellew this week said the carrier is currently studying whether to launch new point-to-point routes from various local airports to unserved destinations across ASEAN. That said, MAB is also evaluating operating some leisure flights from Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s KLIA2 budget terminal starting next year. Bellew said using KLIA2 would result in savings of 1.98 million ringgit ($500,000) a year.
"We will pass on these savings to customers with lower fares," he said. "Each and every cost of everything we do will be minutely checked daily without changing any quality."
