M 095 KEMANA HALA TUJU 'MAS'

MALAYSIAN AIRLINE SYSTEM (MAS)

Malaysia Airlines (Sistem Penerbangan Malaysia) merupakan syarikat penerbangan Malaysia yang mempunyai lebih 55 destinasi di seluruh dunia. Syarikat ini juga menjalankan operasi penerbangan domestik dan charter. Hub utamanya ialah Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur (KLIA). Manakala LTA Kuching, LTA Kota Kinabalu dan LTA Pulau Pinang  dijadikan sebagai hub kedua.

Syarikat ini merupakan salah satu daripada 6 syarikat penerbangan lain di seluruh dunia yang mendapat pengiktirafan 5 bintang oleh Skytrax Selain Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines dan Kingfisher Airlines.  Malaysia Airlines telah diberi kredit oleh IATA melalui IATA Operational Audit kerana perlaksanaan keselamatan operasinya.

Pada 12 Oktober 1937, sebuah syarikat perkapalan enjin stim singapura yang berpusat di Liverpool dan Imperial Airways telah mengahtanr permohonan kepada kerajaan penjajah di Pulau Pinang dan Singapura untuk memulakan penerbangan berjadual yang menghubungkan kedua-dua bandar ini. Malayan Airways Limited (MAL) telah ditubuhkan namun perkhidmatan berbayar untuk penumpang yang pertama sekali hanya dapat diperkenalkan 10 tahun kemudiannya pada 2 Februari 1947 dan penerbangan sulung yang hanya membawa 5 orang penumpang ini adalah untuk ke KUala Lumpur, bukan Pulau Pinang. Dalam tahun yang sama, MAL meluaskan operasi penerbangannya ke Jakarta, Medan, Palembang dan Saigon daripada hub utamanya di Singapura.

Pada tahun 1957, syarikat penerbangan ini dijadikan syarikat milik kerajaan. Dengan ketibaan pesawat Bristo; Britania yang mampu membawa 84 penumpang pada tahun 1960, syarikat penerbangan ini memulakan operasi jarak jauh pertamanya ke Hong Kong.

Apabila negara Malaysia ditubuhkan, nama syarikat ini ditukar kepada Malaysian Airways Limited pada November 1963. Kemudian, apabila Singapura berpisah daripada Kesatuan Malaysia pada 9 Ogos 1965, kerajaan Malaysia dan Singapura mengambil alih saham majoriti daripada BOAC dan pemegang saham yang lain dan syarikat ini bertukar nama menjadi Malaysia-Singapore Airlines (MSA).

Selepas 20 tahun memulakan operasinya, syarikat ini telah menggunakan pelbagai jenis pesawat seperti Comet IV,  enam Fokker F27, lapanDouglas DC-3 dan dua Twin Pioners dan mempunyai tenaga kerja seramai 2,400 orang. Pada 3 April 1971, syarikat penerbangan ini dibahagikan kepada dua syarikat, iaitu Singapore Airlines dan Malaysia Airlines Systems (MAS). Menjelang tahun 1972, MAS telah meluaskan operasi kepada lebih 34 destinasi domestik dan enam destinasi antarabangsa.

Pada 15 Oktober 1987, nama perdangangan syarikat ini ditukar kepada Malaysia Airlines.

Malaysia Airlines telah disenaraikan dalam Bursa Malaysia di bawah nama Malaysian Airlines System berhad. Ibu syarikatnya adalah Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad. Syarikat penerbangan ini telah mengalami kerugian selama beberapa tahun akibat kenaikan harga minyak dan pengurusan yang tidak cekap. Kerajaan Malaysia telah merombak operasi syarikat penerbangan ini dan Idris Jalla telah dilantik sebagai CEO yang baru pada 1 Disember 2005.

Di bawah kepimpinan beliau, Malaysia Airlines telah membentangkan Business Turnaround Plan (BTP) pada Februari 2006 yang telah mendedahkan kekurangan hasil, rangkaian yang tidak berkesan dan tahap produktiviti staff yang rendah. Bangunan ibu pejabat Malaysia Airlines yang pernah dijadikan hiasan pada wang kertas RM20 pada suatu masa dahulu telah dijual. Ibu pejabat korporat Malaysia Airlines kini terletak di  LT Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah, di Subang.

Saham syarikat penerbangan ini dipegang oleh Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad (PMB) (64.43%), Employees Provident Fund Board (10.72%), Amanah Raya Nominees (Tempatan) Sdn Bhd (5.69%), State Financial Secretary Sarawak (2.71%) dan Warisan Harta Sabah (2.4%). Syarikat ini mempunyai 19,546 kakitangan pada Mac 2007.

Subsidiari

Malaysia Airlines mempunyai lebih 20 badan naungan dan badan bersekutu termasuk:

Syarikat	Jenis	Aktiviti utama	Incorporated in	Saham Equiti Kumpulan
Malaysia Airlines Cargo Sdn. Bhd	Subsidiari	Kargo	Malaysia	100%
MASWings Sdn. Bhd.	Subsidiari	Airline	Malaysia	100%
Firefly Sdn. Bhd.	Subsidiari	Airline	Malaysia	100%
MAS Aerotechnologies Sdn Bhd	Subsidiari	MRO	Malaysia	100%
MAS Golden Holidays Sdn Bhd	Subsidiari	Tour operator	Malaysia	100%
Malaysian Aerospace Engineering Sdn Bhd	Subsidiary	Engineering	Malaysia	100%
MAS Academy Sdn Bhd	Subsidiary	Flight school	Malaysia	100%
Abacus Distribution Systems (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd	Subsidiari	Computer reservation system	Malaysia	80%
Taj Madras Air Catering Limited	Associate	Catering	India	20%
MAS Catering (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd	Subsidiari	Catering	Sarawak	60%
LSG Sky Chefs	Associate	Syarikat pegangan	Malaysia	30%

Fleet 

Boeing 

• 9 x 747-400P (359 pax)- (ditamatkan perkhidmatan pada Mac 2016)
• 17 x 777-200 (282 pax) - (ditamatkan perkhidmatan pada Mac 2016)
• 56 x 737-800 (162-189)\
• 37 x 737-400 (144 pax) - (ditamatkan perkhidmatan pada Mac 2016)

Airbus

• 15 x 330-300 (New) (283 pax)
• 6 x 380-800 (494 pax)
• 350-900 (6 dalam tempahan)

Pada bulan Ogos 2011, MAlaysian Airlines bersetuju menjalin perikatan dengan Air Asia melalui pertukaran saham.

Idris Jala: Transforming Malaysia Airlines

The Star: 5/10/2011


THE Finance Ministry said the government had no choice but to go ahead with the share swap between AirAsia and Malaysia Airlines (MAS) to allow the national carrier to move forward. Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr Awang Adek Hussein said it was part of efforts to improve the financial standing of MAS which was moderately successful, but needed a boost to face new challenges.

Furthermore, he said, MAS lost RM770 million in the first half of this year.

"We had no choice. If it makes more losses, the government will have to inject funds and we will face more anger," he said in reply to a question from Datuk Ismail Kasim (BN-Arau).
Awang Adek said the share swap was based on the guiding principle that both parties would benefit. He said AirAsia had proven to be a success in other developing countries such as Thailand and Indonesia.

"MAS can learn from their experience to move forward."

He said the deal would also see both airlines expanding their businesses.

Awang Adek said state investment arm, Khazanah Nasional, was undertaking due diligence before deciding whether to take a stake in AirAsia X.

The deal on Aug 9 involved Khazanah Nasional swapping a 20.5 per cent stake in MAS for 10 per cent in the budget carrier.

Pandangan:

Masa Idris Jalla mengambil alih MAS pada tahun 2005, diwar-warkan pelbagai inisiatif telah diambil, antaranya penjualan aset MAS, tawaran VSS dan pelbagai lagi.  Lepas jual, dapat untung. Namun, bila Idris Jalla keluar (dah naik pangkat jadi Menteri) - diberitakan sepanjang setengah tahun  2011, MAS dah rugi RM770 juta?  Apa maknanya ni? Kalau pembaharuan sekadar bawa untuk setahun dua sahaja....apa hal?

Apa sebenarnya yang berlaku? 

Will Idris Jala please return the millions?

The Malaysian Insider, Aug 08, 2011

So the turnaround specialist, or best thing to happen to Malaysia Airlines, did not do such a good job after all.

But Datuk Seri Idris Jala pocketed a few million short of RM20 million when he left Malaysia Airlines to become the Najib administration’s transformation czar.

This money was either a bonus or compensation for his glorious achievement of “turning things around” at MAS. I am sure major shareholders at MAS - Khazanah Nasional and EPF - will be happy to enlighten Malaysians on this reward scheme.

That is the problem with us Malaysians; we are so quick to praise people and put them on a pedestal. We called Abdullah Ahmad Badawi a reformer early on and look how that turned out. We still didn’t learn.

We swallowed all this 1 Malaysia rubbish and thought that Najib Razak had learnt from Abdullah’s mistakes. It looks like Najib is following Abdullah’s path of self-destruction.

A few years ago, we couldn’t stop gushing about the wonderful job Jala did in turning around MAS. By definition, turn around implies some permanence to an organisation’s change in fortunes. It must entail more than just cutting costs and cleaning up the books.

As blogger Sakmongkol 47 noted in his succinct commentary, it doesn’t take a genius to do asset stripping (selling the buildings, aircraft, etc), showing a clean accounts. But what about making meaningful structural changes to the way MAS operates? How about changes to its business model?

Put it this way, can Idris Jala be considered a success if the “system and personnel” he put in place collapse a couple of years later, and collapse spectacularly.

Would you consider Alex McLeish a success at Birmingham City just because he won the League Cup only to see the club relegated a few months later?

I am sure Jala is a nice chap but his success at MAS was oversold. He just papered over the cracks at the national airline.

Now he is being touted as the man to transform the Malaysian economy. I am sorry but I am not buying the hype because I have seen the evidence of his transformational skills.

He may be the best person in the Malaysian Cabinet but that is not saying much, like the one-eyed man being the king in the land of the blind. My gut feel tells me that, a couple of years down the road, we will find out that Malaysia is still not a high-income economy but pretty much addicted to foreign labour.

Only difference is that we would have a big budget deficit.

antara penerbangan yang aku pernah rasai....

MALAYSIAN...

 
 
 


FOREIGN AIRLINES

  






 
 

Idris Jala joined Malaysia Airlines with a remit to turn the carrier's burgeoning losses into profits. That goal has been met but there remains a long road to reinvention. 

At this time two years ago,  Malaysia Airlines was in deep trouble. It had just reported the biggest-ever loss in its history. Today, posters are going up at its offices with the words "Record Profits". It is a remarkable turn of events for an airline that not so long ago warned it was likely to fail without an immediate and sweeping restructuring. But chief executive Idris Jala is cautioning staff that while they should be celebrating successes, the restructuring effort is far from complete. Deeper, structural change now needs to take place to turn MAS into what he calls "the world's five star value ­carrier" - essentially a high-quality airline with the cost base of a budget operator.

"We have done a successful turnaround, no doubt about it, and it's clear we've done it ahead of schedule. We were supposed to have done it in three years and we did it in two," Idris told Airline Business at his office near Kuala Lumpur's Subang airport days after ­reporting the record-high net profit of 851 ­million ringgit ($267 million) for 2007.

"I now look at it and say we have successfully turned around the company, but the future is a tough world and therefore we cannot run the business as we are today," says Idris. "Today is not a time for declaring victory. This has only just begun. Now we have to assault a new mountain and we have to reinvent ourselves. So we are saying transformation is the word. We have moved from turnaround to transformation."

His offices are themselves a symbol of how much things have changed since he was brought in by the government from oil giant Shell to turn the national carrier around. When he joined, the head office of MAS was a building of its own in the centre of Kuala Lumpur and one of his early moves was to sell it. It was not a popular move.

"When I decided to sell our headquarters there were a lot of people jumping up and down. It was very emotional. People said this is the brand, it is right in the city, it belongs to Malaysians, how dare you go and sell this building," he recalls. "But I told them very frankly, we are burning 150 million ringgit in cash a month, and we are selling the building for 130 million. That is cash to cover us for 20 days. If you can tell me how I am going to raise that money, please tell me. Our backs were against the wall and we had to fix our business otherwise we would go bankrupt. It was better to be emotional about the airline rather than the building."

Idris, who turns 50 this year, says that once the true nature of the carrier's dire financial state was made clear, attitudes quickly changed. As with many other state-owned companies, politicians and the general public were not accustomed to hearing of doom and gloom. But sugar coating the negatives is not Idris' style. He is blunt in his predictions of troubled times ahead, believing that as an executive he has a responsibility to always prepare for the worst.

Idris won a reputation at Shell as a corporate "fix-it" man, known for turning around problematic operations and making them successful. He readily admits he was happy there and did not seek out the MAS job, but ultimately saw it as a challenge and in some ways as a national duty. "One of the reasons why I agreed to come - and I didn't apply for the job - is because the government launched their government-linked company transformation programme. As I was being wooed to come in and join what they called a revolution, I wasn't convinced they were serious," he says. "I was invited to attend the launch event and I sat in the crowd and listened to the proceedings. The prime minister launched it, the finance minister was there, all the head honchos of the government-linked companies were there. As I sat through the launch I became convinced that these guys meant business. For the changes in the top they were putting in professional managers rather than ex-civil servants to do those jobs.

"The starting point was to feel that the time was right, that the winds were blowing in the right direction. But the most important thing was the prime minister came to introduce himself personally at the event. What he said, and it was very important, was that the government will not bail Malaysia Airlines out, that it must fix its own problems." Idris was immediately convinced the time was right the political will was there to transform the organisation and this meant he would have the support to take tough action. He says he loves "corporate adventure", and with the government refusing to provide a bailout "it helped me sell the need for change". He adds: "More importantly, on the other flip side was the deal with the government. The fact that they didn't give us any help in that sense, they had to then give us the autonomy. That's fair and square. If you give us a loan it is fair that you interfere. If you don't give us a loan it is fair that you allow us to fix our problem."

Idris started at MAS on 1 December 2005 and that morning presented what he called a turnaround "roadmap" to the board. He then met with the transport minister, the prime minister, and finally around 700 MAS employees. He told them that over the next 100 days his roadmap would be fine-tuned and developed into a formal Business Turnaround Plan.

The plan, now known as BTP 1 following a new strategy document, was made public in February 2006 as MAS reported a net loss of 1.3 billion ­ringgit for 2005 - in fact only for a nine-month period as the carrier switched to calendar-year reporting. The document is blunt, warning ­repeatedly of the likelihood of failure without immediate change. But its overall message is that a genuine turnaround was possible.

"When we published it nobody believed we could do it," says Idris. "The share price did not move for six or nine months. Everybody felt that we could not do this." But the industry outsider has, at least to date, proven the doubters wrong. Cuts have been dramatic: dozens of routes have been dropped thousands of jobs have been eliminated and essentially every area of the organisation has been overhauled, enabling the airline to ­reverse its losses and return to the black. A ­no-nonsense approach was also taken to malpractice with a whistle-blower programme.

Idris says MAS had three main fundamental problems at the start of the turnaround: it was desperately short of cash was losing money in large part because yields were low and staff were demoralised and unmotivated, which resulted in productivity levels well below those of competitors. A few years earlier a financial restructuring had in fact been carried out that was initially hailed as a success, but by the time Idris joined it was clear that it was more a restructuring on accounting terms through asset sale and lease-back deals with the government and did not get to deep-rooted problems within MAS.

With no in-depth understanding of the airline business, Idris focused on what he knew best - the profit and loss statement. His team immediately got to work raising much-needed cash, in part through sales of some of the carrier's few remaining assets, and focused on stemming the losses as quickly as possible.

The problems at MAS were clear to many, but few were willing to admit them and take action. Idris points to the carrier's network as an example, with most of its routes unprofitable over the 12-month period up to the time that he joined. On the international side, 66 were unprofitable and just 48 were profitable, with too many services being operated out of "social obligation". On the domestic side 114 were losing money and only four were profitable. MAS was not exposed to the domestic losses as those services were operated on behalf of the government for a fee, but bleeding so badly in a core area of the business did little to create a culture of fiscal accountability elsewhere. Over the next few months MAS carried out several rounds of extensive international route cuts, in part as it eliminated point-to-point services from secondary Malaysian destinations and fed them through Kuala Lumpur International Airport. At the same time it negotiated new codeshare ­agreements with other airlines.

A deal was then agreed with the government and low-cost carrier AirAsia under which MAS dropped services on dozens of domestic routes to focus on trunk routes. It was later able to cut its workforce by several thousand people through a voluntary separation scheme and eventually took back P&L ­responsibility for domestic services - ­excluding subsidised turboprop operations in less-developed East Malaysia.

With the main goals and profitability targets of BTP 1 achieved a year early, MAS has moved to the next phase, which is a three- to five-year "transformation" that Idris says is necessary for MAS to remain competitive in an increasingly challenging operating environment. "My father used to say to me as a kid that the best way to think about life is always to aim and plan for the best, but assume the very worst. And that has been my motto in life. Always think that life is going to be tough, and the competition is going to be much better than you are. You over-prepare so you build a boat that will weather the storm. If there is no storm you will do very well but if there is a storm you will still not capsize," he says.

"In business you must have what I call a stand-based future. You must stand in the future and look to manage the present. You don't manage the future from the present. You picture what it looks like and when you become convinced that you like that world then you say you will manage the present."

At the core of the just-released BTP 2 Strategy document is a message that MAS must be able to offer competitive fares by achieving a cost base similar to those of low-cost carriers, while retaining its full-service cabin offerings. Idris recognises that many will say it is not possible to achieve this ideal scenario, but he firmly believes it is doable for MAS. "We cannot continue with our current business model and survive in this turbulent world. We will sink," he says. "So me and my team sat down and asked the question, what would the airline look like that could survive? We came up with the vision that the airline that will survive in our market is this thing called the five star value carrier. We want to make sure our quality of product is really up there, but reduce our costs so that we can give affordable fares. That is our vision, and we believe that when we reinvent ourselves to become that, that is what will weather the storm." He says employees have been buying into the concept and are far more motivated now than when he joined. Productivity - so low for so long - is continuing to improve, yields have risen significantly and underlying costs have been slashed. However, another 1 billion ringgit in cost savings needs to be found, says Idris.

A particular concern is overcapacity in the industry. Idris says MAS will not get caught up in it and will expand at the Asia-Pacific region's forecast annual traffic growth rate of roughly 6%. MAS does have stretch targets and he hopes it can grow more aggressively, but much deeper change is needed first.

Coming soon is a long-awaited fleet revamp, starting with narrowbody orders to replace ageing Boeing 737s. Later in the year MAS intends to order widebodies, but again largely for replacement with options for growth. Already on order are turboprops from ATR for subsidised East Malaysian operation MASWings and new subsidiary Firefly, which it expects to develop into a low-cost operator to face rivals as liberalisation progressively takes hold in Southeast Asia. MAS already faces intense competition at home from Asia's largest low-cost airline, Kuala Lumpur-based AirAsia. It has been growing aggressively on short-haul routes and recently a sister carrier, AirAsia X began operating long-haul services. AirAsia and MAS have not exactly been on good terms over the years, but Idris sees a day when they may co-operate.

"The winners in a competitive environment will be those who know how to compete and collaborate at the same time. If you strike the sweet spot between how far you compete and how far you collaborate it is a winning proposition," he says. "There are a lot of areas where we can work together. Training pilots, for example, and MRO. The net result is we could both reduce costs, but then when it comes to customers we compete. Have we had discussions with them? Yes and no. They have sent some of their aircraft to us but we have not had a long-term deal so we have not quite been successful just yet. But I can see the possibility and I am open to it."

Joining a global alliance is seen by Idris as another likelihood for MAS in the near future. He does not identify a preferred alliance, but most observers favour SkyTeam or oneworld. Star is considered unlikely as Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways are already members.

And of Idris' future at MAS? He acknowledges that his contract is up in November and he hasn't decided whether to stay on. But regardless of his decision, he says an important development from the airline's restructuring has been the emergence of new leaders, meaning the transformation programme is sustainable with or without him. "Now that I have been with the company for two and a half years I know what the guys are good at and they are prepared to run the mile," he says.