Malaysia Airlines was moving away from long-established paper ticketing processes and introducing new reservation, ticketing and departure-control systems. The change touched almost every part of the passenger journey — and many of the people behind it.
The technology was only one part of the challenge. Staff had spent years refining the old ways of working. The new systems meant relearning familiar tasks, and the rollout happened in stages across functions, stations and countries. When people did not know exactly what was coming, rumours and resistance could easily fill the gap.
Give the change an identity
I owned communication for the programme and reported to the Director of Transition Management. One of the first things I did was create a recognisable identity for the Passenger Services System programme, including a project brand, logo and a reusable bank of messages.
The aim was simple: make a technically complex programme feel like one coherent change rather than a succession of disconnected system announcements.
Make the change understandable
I developed the communication plan, messaging and presentation materials used to explain why the change was happening, what Malaysia Airlines was trying to achieve, what would happen next, and what it meant for different groups of employees.
That meant translating highly technical system and process changes for people with very different roles, cultures and levels of technical knowledge — from frontline airport staff to operational teams, crew, support functions and external stakeholders.
Go where the people were
The most important part of the work happened face to face.
I travelled to regional stations and headquarters to present the change directly to employees. These sessions were not simply roadshow presentations. They gave people a direct opportunity to ask questions, raise doubts and talk about what they were worried about with someone from the programme team.
That mattered because the people experiencing the change often understood practical consequences that were difficult to see from the centre.
The most effective communication wasn’t necessarily the material we produced. It was going out, meeting people and giving them the opportunity to ask questions directly.
Build the missing channels
At the time there was no adequate intranet space for the programme, so I built a dedicated PSS intranet subsite. Questions raised during roadshows could be captured, answered and made available to staff afterwards rather than disappearing at the end of a meeting.
We also established a network of change champions across functions, regions, countries and stations. The model worked better in some areas than others, but the intention was important: communication needed to travel in both directions. Champions could cascade information locally while feeding questions and operational concerns back to the programme.
Alongside this I produced video material, documented rollout stages for internal communication, and coordinated communication with employees, partners, vendors, government and other external parties.
What changed
The airline completed the transition within the industry deadline. It was not a frictionless change — there was resistance, technical difficulty and frustration for staff and passengers — but the systems were progressively rolled out and improved over time.
What I remain most proud of is the communication infrastructure around the change: especially the roadshows and the direct line they created between the programme and employees around the world. It was the first time the airline had communicated a change at that scale in that way.