Malaysia Airlines plans to reveal details on its rebranding on September 1 but new boss Christoph Mueller will not be drawn on whether this could mean a change of name.
The debt-ridden carrier the chief executive described as “technically bankrupt” earlier this month, said all options were open.
Mueller, former head of Aer Lingus, announced a restructuring plan at the time involving 6,000 job cuts.
And he told the BBC yesterday that MAS will become an “entirely new company”. “We will leave the old Malaysian Airlines behind,” Mueller said.
He admitted it was “difficult to predict” how fast its brand would recover from last year’s disasters, but said the rebranded airline would take on the compensation obligations of the old company.
MAS flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew aboard last March. Four months later, flight MH17 was shot down by a suspected ground-to-air missile while in Ukrainian airspace, with the loss of 298 passengers and crew.
Mueller also declined to say whether the airline would withdraw from some costly long-haul flights, but said its new schedule would be announced “in a couple of weeks time”.
He was hired by the carrier’s owner, Malaysian state fund Khazanah, to lead the airline’s restructuring. He stressed that the transition would be “an orderly process”.
Improving technology, renegotiating contracts with suppliers and generally becoming more efficient would help the airline to cut costs further.
The airline expected no further bad news “particularly for our new employees,” Mueller said.