Kuwait Airways’ new CEO has to restructure the national carrier and make it profitable

Maen Razouqi, chief executive of Kuwait Airways, has been brought in to restructure the national carrier and put it on a profitable footing with a growth trajectory.

The new CEO is clear about how to tackle the task ahead of him to turn Kuwait’s flag carrier into a sustainable and profitable business, a mission which has eluded many before him.

The priority, he told Arabian Aerospace, was to look inwardly rather than worrying about the competitive landscape in the Middle East.

Interviewed in late June on the sidelines of the 78th IATA Annual General Meeting in Doha, with its back-to-back meetings about partnerships with other airlines and with the airframers, Razouqi’s was adamant: “We have to compete with ourselves first. We must improve.

“One of the key aspects of our transformation is how to bring that competitive DNA internally before we worry externally. We have too much to do in Kuwait Airways for me to worry about others.”

As he chalked up nine months into his tenure at the helm of Kuwait Airways, Razouqi was relishing the job, armed with strong board support to turn the business around.

“The objective that I was given is to make money,” he said. “That’s what excited me about the job.