In defense of the good folks at Malaysia Airlines Engineering & Maintenance.

Once again Malaysia Airlines (MAB) is in the news and once again Malaysians of all walks of life voice their feelings about MAB. Love, frustration, hope and even anger is the usual staple when we Malaysians speak about MAB. The politicians, with an axe or two to grind of course, are now blaming the Singaporeans for MAB’s troubles. How dare they set up an E&M facility in Subang and poach our local talents away from MAB? How stupid can the government be to allow this to happen? But then these same politicians will go to town if Khazanah Nasional reports a lower profit or fail to meet its set investment targets.

I am not an aviation expert nor an expert in matters relating to how salaries and such are benchmarked and determined upon. I reckon there are very smart people and formulas for that. I only claim expertise in helping leaders get the best out of their people through the right sense-making, empathy and a human-centred approach to management.

I had also spent 3 years as Head of People Development at Malaysia Airlines Engineering and Maintenance and here is my take on this.

First, let me congratulate those aircraft engineers and technicians for wanting to build a better life for themselves and their families by accepting a lucrative offer from a competitor who has the financial clout to do so. The rest of the world does this and why shouldn’t they? The fact that global companies set up shop here and readily employ them speaks volumes. The fact that Malaysian aircraft engineers, technicians, flight planners and other specialists can be found all over the world's airports and airlines tells a story that we can be proud of.

Second, the E&M industry has for the longest time been surviving and making huge profits off the backs of highly trained, highly disciplined and highly professional engineers and technicians by paying them peanuts in comparison to the complexity and importance of the work that they do. I used to walk past huge aircraft engines under maintenance and peer into the belly of the most sophisticated aircrafts and see these old and young technicians working on them and I often think with a sadness in my heart “if only the world knew how much these folks who ensure their safety are paid!” Now, this is not the fault of MAB and I want to make this clear. MAB has always done its best to look after its employees but MAB lives in an existing legacy industry eco-system and the industry as a whole needs to wake up and realize that what they are doing is not sustainable. Poaching away talents when you need them by throwing money will end up making the entire industry a loser in the long term. The ASEAN region as a whole will suffer with other regions throwing even more money. The younger generation of Malaysians will not go into a vocation that demands long apprenticeship, long hours, long promotion turn-around and low pay. They will think twice about going into a profession that holds them captive without alternative career paths and opportunities.

Third, to the politicians and others who are constantly?harping on stale arguments, I have this to say: A national airline is influenced by it’s host nation’s policy frameworks, economic cloud, global standing, geographical location, courage to stand-by meritocracy and the iron will to be guided by profit and loss alone and nothing else. If/when you can bring such a cultural shift to the entire nation, you can demand of the same from others. Can KL compete with Singapore and Bangkok to bring in the right number of flight-falls (like how strategically located retail commercial buildings talk about footfalls)? Will we allow for world class artistes to hold concerts here without prejudicial restrictions? How about organizing festivals and celebrations or global sports events with the accompanying night life attractions? In short can we make Malaysia exciting enough for a cross section of travelers who feel obliged to fly into KL?

Finally, to my former colleagues at MAB’s Engineering and Maintenance Division: I salute you for your dedication, sacrifices and sheer determination to shine in your chosen vocation. You are truly under appreciated and under valued by an entire industry. However, you are also too dependent on certain elements amongst you who are long overdue their shelf-life. You need to get better at bridging the gap between your technical know-how with management’s ability to turn your know-how into their decision data points. In other words, airworthiness has a management and business language too. You have to master this. You need the ability to educate the public how your work is at the difficult intersection of regulation-business- global supply & demand. To continue and prosper with the company that you are so selflessly loyal to, you need to break free from 'how things were' and you need to train the young ones to do as well in the hangar as in the Board room. Hire only the best and the brightest and part with those unwilling to change no matter how good they were in the past. Break free my friends. Earn your rightful place under the sun. I know that given a chance, every one of you would wish to end your working life with our beloved airline. To MAB, while this is not entirely your fault, you now have a chance to shake-up the industry by radically altering how the next generation of E&M professionals are identified, trained, certified, deployed, and given alternative career paths. To the likes of Khazanah Nasional, look at the entirety of the E&M ecosystem while you are at it. Hundreds of thousands of future job opportunities in the MRO space for rural and urban youths are at stake let alone the longevity of our flag carrier.

I wish you the very best.

God bless you all.