Malaysia Airlines Considering Changing Name and Routes

After recent tragedies, Malaysia Airlines is looking for ways to rebrand itself and keep passengers safe. Currently, airline management, shareholders and Malaysian government officials are considering changing the name of the airline and changing routes over war zones.

The new name is a change being debated in addition to the privatization of the airline, which I reported on earlier this month.

There is no doubt that the airline was struggling prior to the disappearance of MH370, but the recent incident involving MH17 which was en route to Kuala Lumpur when a surface to air missile shot it down in eastern Ukraine has left the airline severely crippled.

The airline was allowing passengers to change or cancel their flight free of charge after the MH17 incident because so many passengers were worried about flying Malaysia Airlines. Quite frankly, MH17 was not the airlines fault, other major airlines like Air France and Lufthansa were flying through that route as well.

As for MH370, we do not know for sure who is to blame for its disappearance until the black box is found.

“Our majority shareholder, the Malaysian government, has already started a process of assessing the future shape of our business and that process will now be sped up as a result of MH17,” Commercial Director Hugh Dunleavy told the Sunday Telegraph.

Regardless of what is decided, we can all agree that Malaysia Airlines will have a long road to financial recovery and their current brand will take a while to ease into not-so frequent flyers.