KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 17 — Malaysia Airlines’ chief executive officer Peter Bellew will rejoin Ryanair as chief operations officer.

The no-frills airline has today tweeted a message welcoming back Bellew.

The Irish Times reported Bellew’s return to the airline comes after its chief operations officer Michael Hickey resigned recently following a controversy over Ryanair’s plans to cancel flights up to next March due to errors in the company’s pilot rostering practices.

Bellew reportedly will rejoin the company on December 1 to take responsibility for flight operations, ground operations and engineering, "but with a specific responsibility for pilot production, training and career development with a mission to ensure that the pilot rostering failure which Ryanair suffered in early September will never be repeated”, said a statement reported by the Times.

"Peter will lead a significant transformation in the way we reward and interact with our pilots, improve their working environment and career development over the coming years as we grow the fleet to some 600 aircraft and expand our traffic, at lower fares, to 200 million customers per annum,” said Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive.

Bellew expressed being "excited to return home to Ryanair and take up the challenge to grow the operation sustainably. I look forward to working with all the team and all the crews I know so well to further develop our growth to 600 aircraft over the next six years.”

Before joining Malaysia Airlines, Bellew worked as flight operations director at Ryanair until 2014.