Izham takes on task with the ‘heart of a rock’
MALAYSIA Airlines’ (MAS) new chief executive officer, Captain Izham Ismail, is going in to helm the ailing airline with his eyes wide open.
The airline has lost more money than it has made since 2001, a clear indication that it lacks quality in its earnings. Its shareholder, which is the government holding its stake via Khazanah Nasional Bhd, has pumped in more than RM20bil over the period and the airline still requires more.
The airline has seen more changes in its top leadership than its peers in the region and perhaps even on the global stage. Staff morale is at its lowest as it continues to lose money when other airlines and low-cost carriers such as AirAsia Bhd announce hefty profits quarter after quarter.
The 57-year-old Izham, who comes from a poor background in Alor Setar, however, has a heart of rock ready to steer the airline for the next five years.
“I’m not the smartest kid on the block, but I have a heart of rock,” he told editors at a briefing earlier this week.
Armed with his training as a pilot from the Philippines, Izham knows the operations of the airline like the back of his hand. He has spent 38 years at the airline and has handled 18 portfolios in the last 20 years.
His vast experience within the organisation is the anchor of Izham’s strength in steering MAS.
His credentials are very unlike the previous two CEOs – both foreigners – who came from outside the organisation and left MAS midway into their contracts.
Christoph Mueller was appointed on May 1, 2015 for a three-year term to manage the turnaround of MAS. He mapped out the recovery plan together with former CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.
Under the plan that took effect in 2015, MAS was delisted from the stock exchange, 6,000 employees were told to leave and the profile of the planes was reconfigured.
Mueller came into MAS with big fanfare. The German was the first foreign CEO of the airline, that apart from losing money was also sinking due to two tragedies.
Mueller came in with the reputation of having a track record of turning around ailing airlines. However, he left in April 2016, citing “personal reasons”, only to join Emirates a few months later.
Peter Bellew, who took over from Mueller, also resigned after having served less than a year. Bellew has rejoined Ryanair.
Both left, saying that MAS was in good hands and that the turnaround plan was working as scheduled.
The reality is that both left with- out having completed their task, and MAS is still bleeding.
Having a foreign CEO in MAS did not work. Would re-employing a man from within such as Izham do the trick? Would it bring MAS back into profitability?
Izham’s announcement as CEO hardly created a ripple, suggesting that expectations of him making the airline work are already low.
Taking the task ahead in his stride, Izham – who had opted for a career as a pilot at a very young age to help his family – has mapped out his plan for MAS.
He has gathered his troops to rework the network, sweat the assets better and position MAS in an area where it can survive the tough environment, where it faces competition from other airlines as well as a challenging fuel price environment.
Critics say that like many other CEOs appointed from within MAS, the biggest drawback is the difficulty in making hard decisions, considering that Izham has to deal with friends who had built careers
in the airline together for years. They feel that making hard decisions will be tough, especially if it involves cutting the cost of opera-tions.
Izhham has taken cognisance of the drawbacks of being promoted from within. “However, the strength is that I know the opera-tions tions better,” he says.
Another advantage for Izham is that he has taken on the job knowing that some of the hard decisions have already been made and largely handled by the foreign CEOs. And expectations on MAS are low at the moment.
Now, he has to focus on the recovery plan and operations, which are even harder.