Malaysia Airlines named its third CEO in two years amid a business overhaul after two fatal air crashes in 2014 prompted the carrier’s owner to take the company private. The airline, now fully owned by the nation’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional, promoted COO Peter Bellew to the top job after Christoph Mueller resigned in April about less than half way into his three-year tenure. The appointment takes effect Friday, three months before Mueller was scheduled to leave. “His appointment will ensure continuity in the execution of the turnaround plan and further progress of the overall restructuring effort,” Malaysia Air said Thursday. After Khazanah took the airline private in 2014, Mueller was tasked the following year with leading a 6b ringgit restructuring plan. The proposal included 6,000 job cuts and scrapping of long-haul destinations to help revive the unprofitable carrier struggling to win back passengers spooked by a plane that vanished and another that was shot down. Bellew joined Malaysia Air in September from Ryanair, where he ended his stint as director of flight operations after various roles since 2006 at the Dublin-based carrier. He previously founded an online travel agency in Ireland and was a managing director at that country’s Kerry Airport, according to Malaysia Air’s website. The new chief will continue with the strategy “because they were on track in terms of recovery, and they’d want to stay on track,” said Shekhar Jaiswal, an analyst at RHB Research Institute, who covers airlines and other transportation companies. “I would get worried if a new CEO comes in and says ‘we need to turn around, let’s hire more people, bring back all the long-haul aircraft.”’<br/>Malaysia Air should resist unwinding a turnaround strategy that’s cut 6,000 jobs and reduced capacity by almost a third, Mueller said in an interview in June. The carrier is ahead of schedule with its restructuring, having reached break even recently, putting it on course for a full-year profit in 2018 as targeted if not earlier, he said. When he quit in April, Mueller cited reasons that were personal and beyond his control.<br/>