KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 13 — Rebranding troubled Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) is of secondary concern to fixing the airline’s operations and finances, Khazanah chief Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar said today.
Azman, managing director of Khazanah Nasional Berhad, said MAB’s recovery plan was on track, and that he was confident it will be able to meet its five-year deadline in 2018.
“In terms of rebranding, I was asked this question on 29 August 2014 when we first announced (the restructuring plan). To be honest, I don’t think it was a priority then and I don’t think it’s a priority now.
“I think it is more important to get the operations, the cost base, and the fundamentals right first,” he told a news conference here.
“Otherwise you rebrand but yet the basics are not in place so it sounds hollow,” Azman added.
The national carrier was delisted in August last year after sovereign wealth fund Khazanah offered to buy out minority shareholders for a total of RM1.38 billion to restructure MAS.
As part of the rationalisation exercise carried out by its parent company Khazanah, MAB has since cut 6,000 jobs, slashed salaries and trimmed its capacity by 30 per cent.
Khazanah has since pledged to invest RM6 billion in the restructuring plan to make MAB profitable again.
