THE cabin crew union of Malaysia Airlines said it was concerned over the shock announcement of chief executive officer Peter Bellew’s departure as there would no longer be anyone to answer for controversial deals to buy new Boeing aircraft.

The National Union of Flight Attendants (Nufam) said Bellew had served his purpose by inking the purchase of new Boeing aircraft, a deal announced by Prime Minister Najib Razak during his visit to the White House in September.

“A new CEO coming into MAS will not have to answer for anything now. The mission to have Peter Bellew sign the memorandums of understanding is complete,” the union said after news that Bellew would return to Irish budget airlines RyanAir in December.

Najib had announced that MAS would buy 25 Boeing 737 jets and eight 787 Dreamliners, and that orders would likely be made for another 25 737s over the next five years, in a deal worth more than US$10 billion (RM42 billion).

Nufam said it was worried that MAS would suffer heavier losses due to expensive maintenance of the new planes they purchased.

It said MAS would not be able to afford buying the new planes as it was just recovering from a series of heavy cutbacks.

“There are also no signs of MAS making profits to show they could sustain all these high cost and maintenance of new planes. Its financial problems will rise up again in no time when the new planes arrive.”

Nufam also questioned why MAS was buying new planes within three years of axing 6,000 staff from the airline under a restructuring plan.

Bellew’s departure from MAS was first announced today by RyanAir, and appeared to have taken MAS by surprise. The national carrier called it an “unexpected” announcement.

Bellew first joined MAS in 2015 as chief operating officer, and became CEO in July 2016. He took over from outgoing CEO Christoph Mueller on July 1 last year after the latter quit MAS less than a year into his contract, citing personal reasons.

Bellew is the third MAS CEO in two years after Mueller and Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, who stepped down after the twin MAS tragedies of MH370 and MH17 in 2014

Nufam said it did not agree with foreign CEOs leading MAS.

“They are not answerable to the public . These foreign managers make fat salaries and leave in no time. Other airlines have proven that there is no need to hire a foreigner to run their airline and they still can expand and show results,” it added.

Aviation analyst at Maybank Investment Bank Mohsin Aziz meanwhile said it was hard to say whether the national airline could remain on track as per the MAS Recovery Plan.

“Information from MAS has been a tiny trickle, we don’t really know what’s what. We keep hearing of turnaround, we really are going around in circles,” he told The Malaysian Insight. – October 17, 2017.