MAB keeps 9,000 permanent staff

PETALING JAYA: The new Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB) has hired only 9,000 of its employees on permanent contracts. Another 4,000 employees of MAB are on short-term contracts.

This is a far cry from the old Malaysia Airlines (MAS) that had 20,000 employees mostly on permanent contracts. The new airline MAB took over the operations of the old airline on Sept 1.

The short-term contracts range from three months to 12 months, implying that the total workforce being eventually laid off as part of the remaking of MAS into MAB may go up to 11,000 people instead of the 6,000 announced earlier.

“Nine thousand may just be the number that MAB needs permanently going forward since it is a smaller airline than the former MAS,” said an aviation executive.

Apart from those employed in MAB, there are another 2,000 employed in subsidiaries such as Firefly, MASkargo and MASwings.

Khazanah Nasional Bhd, in its quarterly update on MAB, said the airline had hired several people including Paul Simmons as chief commercial officer, Peter Bellew (chief operations officer), Mohd Nadziruddin Mohd Basri (MAB Ground Handling Services Sdn Bhd chief executive officer), Faridah Hashim (head of corporate communications), Datuk Sabrina Albakri Abu Bakar (company secretary), Nik Azli Abu Zahar (executive counsel), Tan Kok Meng (head of information technology), Laurent Recoura (head of sales), Charles D. McKee (head of marketing) and Claudia Maria Cadena Tarazona as interim chief human resources officer.

Those axed were compensated under a formula that had been worked out earlier and those who joined MAB also had a sign on package as inducement to join the new airline.

Khazanah said MAS paid out RM1.5bil as payments and benefits provided to staff joining MAB and those exiting MAS.

The investment agency said it would disburse about RM1.3bil soon as part of the RM6bil set aside for the remaking of the national carrier.

“In total, including the RM1.3bil, Khazanah would have disbursed a total of about RM3.2bil out of the RM6bil in conditional investment funding allocated to the restructuring effort, subject to strict conditions being met,” Khazanah said.

Apart from staff, Khazanah said comprehensive efforts to reset the operating business was ongoing, including more than 100 projects aimed at resetting the operating business mode.

They include repairing revenue, optimising cost and putting in place enablers to facilitate the restructuring effort.

Khazanah said further fine-tuning of MAB’s business plan was ongoing.

Several non-profitable routes had been suspended over the last three months, and further route rationalisation was underway.

MAS is said to have cut about 18% of its capacity till August.

“The airline is on track towards becoming a sustainably profitable, principally commercial national carrier that supports national development objectives, while remaining a full-service international airline that maintains its current domestic routes and a regional backbone with broad global connectivity through partnerships,” Khazanah said.