Short-term cuts will give Malaysia Airlines long-term benefits, say analysts
Published on: Monday, September 09, 2024
By:
FMT, Gareth Corsi
More realistic scheduling by Malaysia Airlines will ease the maintenance logjam, according to an aviation expert.
PETALING JAYA: The problems unfolding at Malaysia Airlines have received intense media scrutiny over the past few weeks, with questions raised about the national carrier’s ability to make it through another turbulent episode in its history.
Adding to the concern is Malaysia Airlines’ decision to cut back on flights and routes due to "technical issues". However, aviation experts said this was not something to worry about as it would benefit the airline in the longer term.
ADVERTISEMENT
Aviation analyst and consultant Brendan Sobie said Malaysia Airlines was one of many airlines facing manpower and supply chain problems, aircraft park shortage and delivery delays.
"They have been battling these challenges for quite some time, but the situation got worse over the past few months,"he said in an interview with Astro Awani, adding that the airline has had to extend a lot of its older aircraft beyond their planned operational lifespan because of delivery delays and other issues.
He said this meant the company was operating older aircraft at a time when utilisation was high.
To compensate and maintain its schedule, he said, Malaysia Airlines has had to push its remaining aircraft even harder.
ADVERTISEMENT
He explained that the knock-on effect of pushing older aircraft was that they tended to "break" more often, resulting in more instances of "aircraft on the ground" or unscheduled maintenance.
Aviation expert Germal Singh Khera said it was possible that Malaysia Airlines was sending its engines overseas for maintenance and not getting them back in time.
ADVERTISEMENT
"There seems to be some delay in terms of getting the engines back on time due to availability of parts and support equipment and all that,"he said, but added that this seemed to be a worldwide problem for the industry.
Germal, a former senior manager at Malaysia Airlines and the Malaysian Aviation Commission, said it was common for airlines – even those like Malaysia Airlines that had their own maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities – to send engines offsite for major overhaul and repair.
No compromise on safety
He dispelled the notion that Malaysia Airlines might have cut corners to keep its fleet operational and maintain schedules.
"Malaysia Airlines will not compromise on safety, it just has some maintenance and mechanical issues,"he said, adding that the airline had already taken action by cutting its scheduled services.
Germal said regular audits by the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia and the International Air Transport Association of the airline and its maintenance operations effectively prevented any attempt to circumvent procedures.
"After the problems with MH370 and MH17 and the risk to its reputation, it wouldn’t want to go in that direction. It takes a long time to recover your reputation, and we are playing with human lives,"he said.
Sobie said the cuts to Malaysia Airlines’ services were short-term moves that would benefit the carrier in the long-term.
"It has made these massive capacity cuts and taken a step back, so now scheduling is realistic and it shouldn’t have so many issues. There should be some confidence in that schedule,"he said.
“Most of the operational issues that it has been facing can be resolved in the next few months as it gets aircraft back into service.
“There is a queue of aircraft that are waiting for maintenance, issues with spare parts or even manpower, because there’s a shortage of skilled mechanics and so forth.
“Once that kind of log jam is eased, it will be able to add more flights, hopefully by the end of this year or early next year.
"Hopefully, confidence will come back and the on-time performance will improve and Malaysian consumers will be able to trust their airline more."
Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
Daily Express Malaysia
