A former chief executive of Sri Lanka's Shell gas unit who has turned around Malaysia Airlines has termed his experience in the island as a 'baptismal of fire'.

In December 2005, Idris Jala took over state-run Malaysian Airlines, in a year the firm lost 1.3 billion Malysian ringgit.

In two years, it had reported profits of 851 million ringgit, much higher than the level promised by Jala's original turnaround plan.

During his tenure here, Jala ran Shell Gas Lanka, a privatized gas monopoly whose prices were controlled by the government.

Like many 'poor' countries, critics say the benefit of public utilities are only available to a few 'haves' in Sri Lanka as politicians use utilities to buy the votes of people who already enjoyed the services and deny profits for expansion to the rest of the population.

Before Shell took over the then Colombo Gas Company, the state firm deliberately cut the supply of new cylinders as it the cash strapped firm was unable to expand storage to meet demand.

Gas shortages were also common.

In Sri Lanka around 20 percent of the poorer and rural population do not have power, pipe-borne water even less, but the richer sections of society who already have the service put pressure on the government to under-price services, crippling the state utilities.

Under state-ownership the country's Sri Lanka's telecom sector was limited to rich businessmen and those with political clout who could get 'priority' service. Ordinary people had to wait decades to get a phone.

But in the mid-1990s the sector was privatized, along with gas but it was also opened to competition. More phones were sold in the first few years under private management than the previous state monopoly did in the entire preceding century.

After Shell took-over the gas monopoly, usage rocketed, but its requests to raise prices were unpopular with politicians. A large terminal built by the firm, also ran into controversy due its high costs and throughput charges.

"For me, my baptism of fire was when I went to Sri Lanka as the CEO of Shell in 1998. The company had acute problems and had been losing money for years," Idris told Malaysia's The Star newspaper.

"If I had relied on my textbooks, there was no way I could fix the problems.

"During that time, I had to unlearn what I had already learnt. I had to reinvent myself to make the impossible happen."

Sri Lanka's state firms are largely run for the benefit of their overstaffed and unionized workers as well as their political masters. Customer service is poor or non-existent.

Through clever politicking, their suffering customers are usually persuaded to support state ownership, largely in the belief that they get cheaper prices.

The general population is unaware that treasury handouts are ultimately financed through higher costs elsewhere or inflation (printed money), or deprived services to the 'have nots'.

Running a private monopoly, Shell Gas in Sri Lanka came under fire not only from traditional critics who opposed privatization, but also from supporters of free markets including the business press who did not like monopolies and the lack of even basic regulation.

"After my Sri Lanka experience, I was a different Idris," he recalled. "Before that, I never believed in the game of the impossible. I was scared of failure and would never think of setting unthinkable targets.

"If you always do safe things, then you will never realize your potential. But if you stretch your targets and push yourself to the limits, you will be surprised at what you can achieve."

Idris is credited with turning around Malaysian Airlines despite rising fuel costs by sophisticated pricing, revenue and yield management as well as slashing unprofitable routes and other costs.

In 2008 Malaysian Airlines launched a 'Everday Low Fares' scheme where customers who book 30 days or more earlier get cheaper fares. The strategy was aimed at making use of the 30 percent of capacity that was usually unutilized.