PETALING JAYA: Newly appointed Malaysia Airlines managing director and group CEO Christoph Mueller has described as premature the recent speculation on the airline offering some of its fleet for sale or lease.

However, Mueller, who assumed the role on May 1 and was put in charge by the company’s sole shareholder, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, to lead the overall restructuring of MAS, said exploring fleet options to enhance viability of long-haul sectors was one of the areas being looked into.

“As such, recent speculation on the airline offering some of its fleet for sale or lease is too premature when nothing concrete has been achieved.

“MAS needs to operate and utilise its fleet at an optimum level besides maximising revenue on the routes it flies,” he said in a statement yesterday.

He added that the market needed to give MAS room to explore various options in determining the most viable strategy.

Currently, what was most important to Mueller was to drive the design and implementation of the business plan for the new MAS, to turn the national carrier into sustainable profitability.

A day before Mueller took up the position, unconfirmed reports surfaced that the airline had put several of its aircraft, including six A380 super-jumbos, on sale or lease.

According to aviation industry site Leeham News, MAS was offering for sale or lease all six of its Airbus A380s, its two Boeing 747-400Fs, four Airbus A330-200Fs and four Boeing 777-200ERs, as it sought to restructure following a disastrous 2014.

Another site, Flightglobal, added that an official from the airline had said that the carrier intended to “approach the market to dispose some assets”, but would not be drawn into which types would be sold.

The site said MAS had four A330 freighters, as well as 13 passenger A330s plus 13 777-200ERs.-thestar