It has been a year since the tragic loss of MH370. Malaysia Airlines has been struggling since. While they have received countless of moral support, the airline’s health remains critical, barely surviving financial losses, amounting to USD180 million at the end of Q3 2014, according to the airline’s Q3 report last year. Malaysian government stepped in through Khazanah Nasional, exercising a group-wide restructuring of Malaysian Airline System.
Despite efforts to save the airline, the company is still slowly but surely spiraling down, deeper into its financial slope. Measures were taken in what seen to be as their final battle to revive and survive, bringing upon us a theatrical battle of survival of the once glorified Malaysia Airline System or known better as MAS.
March 2014, when global attention directed towards the small peninsular of Malaysia with the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370, little known to many, even key industry players that in the same month, MAS appointed RAMCO Systems to supply a total solution to replace its legacy systems within its Engineering Division, in its effort to enhance MRO capabilities within the airline, focusing on its own fleet of 145 aircraft from Malaysia Airlines itself and subsidiaries including Firefly and Maswings and its cargo wing, MASkargo.
RAMCO Appointed MRO Solution Provider
In effort to enhance its MRO capabilities, the Malaysian national carrier has appointed RAMCO to supply and install its aviation suite software as a part of initiative by MAS to automate its MRO operations.
RAMCO stated, in a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, that the aviation management software will “help MAS to boost its MRO operations while offering opportunities to scale up its engineering division’s business”. This, according MAS then CEO, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya will help MAS to facilitate fleet management, minimise operation time as well as aircraft on ground time and will enable them to offer more slots for third party customers.
The system, according to Virender Aggarwal, CEO of RAMCO is made up of bar code-enabled feature that will efficiently minimise movement and time consumption in warehouses and hangars. The system, added Aggarwal, will also include touchless feature which allows engineers or technicians to operate the system using motion detection devices, as well as a more user-friendly and simpler system interface, requiring less time for data entry tasks.
Full Turn Around for Malaysia Airlines
In a press statement in Kuala Lumpur, MAS Aerospace Engineering (MAE) CEO, Azhari Mohd Dahlan confirmed that Malaysia Airlines has initiated its full turn around this year following the disastrous year in 2014 – the lost of both MH370 and MH17.
The appointment of RAMCO as part of its Engineering Division reformation took place at the right place, at the right time. The lost of two B777-200ER aircraft has more or less crippled the airline- the B777s, apart from its A330 fleet is the backbone of MAS. While full installation has taken place in a record breaking 11 months, question remains whether the system will achieve total operability. This, according to Aggarwal, depends on how the workforce embraces and accepts the system. “The software is only a small part of the system. What more important is the people themselves,” he added.
Meanwhile, in a more recent event, MAS has announced the disposal of a large part of its fleet – all six A380s, four of its B777-200ERs, two B747-400Fs and four A330-200Fs – meaning the entire MASKargo has to go.
This, according sources, will put pressures on Boeing and Airbus, as the customers and potential customers will be given the rare opportunity to watch the market strength for used A380 or even better, having the chance to try out the A380 themselves at the expense of Malaysia Airlines. Disposal of the A330-200F will not do Airbus any better, with price and ROI issues lingering the aircraft production.
Meanwhile, should MAS really release its two B747-400F aircraft, Boeing, like Airbus will face troubles maintaining its line of the newer B747-8F, due to the availability of the relatively young B747-400F aircraft, which will definitely attract new buyer.
