Nearly three years after twin disasters took it to the brink of financial collapse, Malaysia Airlines' new CEO says an overhaul aimed at turning the ailing carrier around is going better than expected.

Bellew said the airline is on track to meet key performance goals, including turning an annual profit by 2018 and re-listing on the stock exchange the following year.

The company's jets are carrying more passengers, including on its London route, he said.

London is the carrier's last remaining European route and one where it uses superjumbo Airbus A380 jets that must carry many passengers to be profitable.

Just months after Flight 370 disappeared, a second Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 carrying 298 people was shot down over Ukraine.

Those tragedies deepened the carrier's already daunting troubles.

The search for the airline's flight 370 that went missing in March 2014 with 239 people on board was suspended Tuesday.

An unsustainable network of routes, high operating costs and archaic online systems were symptoms of chronic mismanagement that had saddled the airline with at least 1.7 billion US dollars in losses since 2011.

Updates on the finances of the airline are scant: it was de-listed from the stock exchange in 2014 and radically restructured with 6 billion ringgit (1.5 billion US dollars) in government support.

But lower jet fuel prices have since helped cut costs, and revenue has improved thanks to strong traffic growth in the region.

Hong Kong - 17 January 2017

1. Various of the Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia Airlines, Peter Bellew at a luncheon meeting

2. SOUNDBITE (English) Peter Bellew, Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia Airlines,

"We made a profit last month, which is great, we expect the last quarter of this year to be break even or to make a profit across the quarter, and currently on the trajectory to make a profit across next year and we hope to re-list on Bursa Malaysia in March 2019."

3. Wide of Bellew speaking at the luncheon

4. Close of Bellew's face

5. SOUNDBITE(English) Peter Bellew, Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia Airlines,

"The fact that we will make this a success, it will be the greatest turnaround and transformation of an airline in history, because no airline has been through what we've been through."

6. Pan of the luncheon