The current chief executive of Malaysia Airlines (MAS), Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, will step down on April 30 and resume his duties as a non-executive director on the board.
This will allow the new CEO, Christoph Mueller, to begin running the company on May 1, 2015, instead of July as originally planned.
All of this is being pushed forward so that Mueller may lead the company’s restructuring efforts and allow appropriate time for the transition to the new company which will contain the airline’s operations from July 2015.
The airline will issue termination letters to employees affected by the restructuring on June 1, two months later than the previous date indicated, after obtaining the approval of sovereign fund Khazanah. It is expected that 6,000 will lose their jobs.
Khazanah took MAS private last year, as part of a MYR6 billion Malaysian ringgit (USD$1.61 billion) restructuring aimed at returning the carrier to profit within three years.