Tony Fernandes CEO Blog

I spent the past week in France. Went to see Airbus and then took a few days off cruising on a boat with my dear friend Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of the Easy Group. It was great fun.

Few know how we got acquainted. I had been working in Warner Music for 15 years. First as Warner Communication then Time Warner. In between, we merged with CNN and finally became AOL Time Warner. That was one merger too many for me and I was against it so in 2000, I stood in the Warner office in Rockfeller Center, New York and I quit. It was impulsive but then I knew that I didn't believe in their vision and I was having problems with my boss anyway so it was time to go. I had no idea what I was going to do but I just felt that the time had come for me to go. I guess I was always aware when my sell by date was.

So I walked. I think my boss was really happy I did. I flew from New York back to London which, in many ways was my home as I had spent such a long time there.

I was watching the telly in a pub and I saw Stelios on air talking about Easyjet and running down the national carrier, British Airways (Sound familiar? Hahaha). I was intrigued as I didn't know what a low cost carrier was but I always wanted to start an airline that flew long haul with low fares.

So I went to Luton and spent a whole day there. I was amazed how people were flying to Barcelona and Paris for less than 10 pounds. Everything was organised and everyone had a positive attitude. It was then at that point in Luton airport that I decided to start a low cost airline. in January 2001, armed with one million I went about building AirAsia. The rest is now history.

So I owe a lot to Stelios. I emailed him a few times. He always replied but was not keen on investing. We became good friends after we met at the World Economic Forum.
Since then we have seen each other quite a few times. The great thing about Stelios is his humility and that's very endearing. He has moved on from Easyjet to Easyhotel, Easycruise, Easycinema, Easybus and even Easypizza.

I watched the Monte Carlo Grand Prix from his apartment. He is right above the start line as you can see from the pictures.

Stelios is like Richard who was also there. These are serial entreprenuers. They like to start a business and then move onto another one. I love his energy, his drive, his desire to have fun but above all, his humility.

Many people ask me what it was like going to the UK at the age of 12. What was English public school like? Well here goes.

It was very strange arriving in Epsom. I knew no one in a school where the majority were English boys and the weather was bitingly cold.

The houses they put us in were sparse. There were 12 boys to a dormitory and we slept on beds worse than prison bunks.

Cold showers were common and we became fresh meat for for prefects who loved to pick on first year students.

But it was hell for me, the gawky newbie, only for a week as I quickly made it my home. I spent a wonderful five years there and my closest friends are still those from Epsom. There is something special about going to boarding school which lets bond with people who become lifelong friends. I suppose it’s the fact that you had to eat, learn play and sleep together.

I was thrilled that so many of my Epsom mates turned up at the AirAsia X Inagural flight party in London especially my two best friends, Roddy Williams and Charlie Hunt.

Good ‘ole Roddy and Charlie and I were all residents of Holman House, the furthest away from the school’s main building. In the school grounds, we had our share of fun and mischief; on the whole harmless stuff but such schoolboy exploits are best filed away in the memory bank.

Roddy has become a master brewer. His four-year degree and I suspect, more importantly, all those trips to the pub, paid off. He now runs a brewery in Cold Habour, Melbourne. Roddy came all the way from Australia on AirAsia X with a bottle of specially made beer to commemorate our maiden voyage. That is what friendship is after 32 years.

Charlie, who now lives in Wales used to go watch planes with me at Heathrow airport, on top of carpark 5. I used to tell him that I wanted to own an airline. I won't tell you his reply hahaha. I love planes and the trip to Heathrow on the green line always gave me a warm feeling as it meant I was heading home.

I had five great years in Epsom and now I'm the governor of the school. Many of the masters who taught me are still there.

Epsom wasn't just where I learned the textbook truths of maths, science and history but so much more values that have shaped my beliefs.

Despite being a different colour and different nationality it taught me that you earned your rewards by merit. I was captain of the hockey team, head of house and college prefect. I guess I was good at sport and it made a difference. It's hard to imagine me being good at sport, I know.

At Epsom education is not just about getting 15As in exams it was about meeting and communicationg with people. It taught me ambition, humility and leadership. It taught me that sport and creativity are crucial to a successful lifeBut the most important lesson I learned was to value friends and that friends are forever. You can't buy loyalty and friendship. You earn it.

These are exciting times to be caught up in the race of technology tools. I’ve decided to use new media to hire staff for very exciting opportunities within AirAsia this time around. Heres your chance to get the job that people are asking for. There are now openings in the Ancillary Income department which generates revenue from credit card, insurance, food, duty free products, merchandise and services such as tune cards and other payment mechanisms. Tell me by writing in to me how you best fill these positions that I need. The vacancies and relevant job scopes are laid bare as below:-

Head of Ancillary Income

1. Marketing savvy
2. Able to lead a team of marketing and sales personnel
3. Have the creativity to develop new businesses and forsee opportunities for revenue expansion
4. At least 10 years working experience, preferably in Marketing in FMCG, Telecommunication, Banking or marketing related industries
5. Possess confidence and great presentation skills in engaging different levels of audiences
6. Able to crunch numbers through financial reports such as Profit & Loss statements and other financial indicators that reads the market patterns and demands ahead
7. Expect to work under great pressure as you will report directly to me and I expect results
8. Ability to have fun and party hard
9. Able to work in a team
10. Have lots of ambition to go places

Executive Ancillary Income

1. Marketing savvy
2. Develop new businesses at managerial levels by suggesting and pushing for positive growth in ancillary channels
3. At least 2-3 years working experience, preferably in Marketing in FMCG, Telecommunication, Banking or marketing related industries
4. Have great presentation skills in delivering key messages
5. Capability to develop ability to crunch numbers and derive value
6. Reports directly to Head of Ancillary

Merchandiser

1. Marketing savvy and able to think ahead on the developing trends
2. Able to source for and work on getting the best out of vendors and partners
3. Develop new businesses at managerial levels by suggesting and pushing for positive growth in merchandises that matches the overall ancillary strategy
4. At least 5 years working experience in a similar role
5. Have great presentation skills in delivering key messages
6. Reports directly to Head of Ancillary

Graphic/Merchandising Designer

1. Main duty to design merchandise and marketing collaterals
2. Eye for details and creative execution in ensuring proper messages are carried
3. Preferably with merchandising design experience
4. 2-3 years working experience in retail
5. Able to work with freelancers and scour the net for new designs and inspiration. Savvy enough to keep up with trends and with what people want.
6. Reports to Head of Ancillary Income

If you feel that you are the one, write in to me now at tonyfernandes@airasia.com and demand the job that you deserve. Live your dreams with AirAsia and work with me.

A lot has been said about 1Malaysia. My views on that are very clear. I hope one day there will be 1Asean.

So I won't dwell on it. What I would like to focus on are the reforms implemented in the commercial sector by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's administration.

The removal of NEP requirements for 27 service sub-sectors represents a great start. I hope the rest of it will also wound down in time. But I hope more importantly, that the entire domestic economy is reformed.

My wish is that Datuk Seri Najib does a Margaret Thatcher. At present, there is too much vested interest, conflict and red tape that kill creativity, discourage innovation and provide little incentive for entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses. Before all of you jump on me and point to AirAsia's success, yes, we have survived and thrived, but AirAsia could be so, so much bigger and successful if we didn't have to deal with all these issues.

What are they?

1) Government-owned firms should be divested by the state. The government should facilitate the operations of businesses, not run them. I'm not saying GLC's should be sold to individuals like in the past but the public should own them. So instead of Khazanah owning 70 percent of several supposedly private entities, let the public own them. These companies should be put in charge and empowered, not led by civil servants. No matter how highly qualified, civil servants tend to have a singular mind-set which is that of regulators. When they are in charge of GLC's, they are likely to be conflicted in dealings with private firms such as AirAsia. Can Khazanah be really objective on issues regarding AirAsia when it owns MAS and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad?

2) If GLC's are 70 percent owned by the public and overseen by professional boards of directors, it is much more likely that the senior management, including the CEO will consist of qualified and experienced professionals --- people seasoned in the private sector and who will come into the job knowing that they can't rely on government intervention and protectionism. This can only help nurture the building of stronger and better brands.

3) Monopolies stifle and strangle innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. They should be broken up. Look at our airports, almost all under the control of MAB. We have 40-odd airports. Have they been effectively developed? Are they contributing as much to the national and local economies as they should? AirAsia has been stubborn and fought all this every inch of the way, but it has taken a toll on us as well. As for the country, how many good businesses have we lost? How many great entrepreneurs have just given up, tied up in knots by the tangles of red tape and the regulator-mentality of GLC's determined to protect their own turf rather than consider the broader national interest?

4) Private industries coupled with efficient marketing-driven GLC's will get us out of this rut. And then we can have firms that can go out there and be the best in Asean and then in Asia.

Good luck to our new prime minister. He has started off well but as the Beatles once said, it's a "long and winding road." He is right to focus on the economy. Attracting foreign investment is great but he would do equally well, if not better, to remove the shackles that prevent local talent from soaring. It is a Malaysian (note Malaysian) who will grow and drive this country. There is so much talent among our people. Liberate it.

I have received many letters both negative and positive in my years at AirAsia but this letter really moved me. It just goes to show how AirAsia has changed lives and how our dream of uniting ASEAN is fast becoming a reality. This wonderful appreciative man does not look at us as a Malaysian airline but instead as an ASEAN product that has made his dreams come true.

I just wish we can do even more for guests like him. Look at his wish list for us! But how do we set about fulfilling these expectations when we can't even seem to be able to get the details sorted out on our new home, the purpose-built Low-Cost Carrier Terminal at KLIA?

Four months have passed and we still have not heard from the Malaysian Airports Holding Berhad. I am despondent because if we had been allowed to go ahead with Labu, we would have done so much already. The country should not slow down private businesses, especially now in these testing economic times. We need low costs --- and we would welcome more efficiency and passion from MAHB so that we can make more dreams like those of the author of this letter come true.

In times when many focus on the negative, it is so wonderful to get this letter. Thank you Muliadi. You have made an old man very very happy.

Letter from guest

Dear Tony Fernandez,

We send our regards by Attaching my photos with my 4 children in royal palace bangkok. But your system can not allow it.

1. It is a great pleasure to have your letter. You are a legend. The world will remember you for the next 100 years. I will keep your letter to my grand-grand sons. Dou you have pen or anything else with your signature that you can send me so i can keep it too? I do not mind if you like to send me your first airplane. That must be very precious now and next 100 years.

2. How can AirAsia the World’s best low cost airlines because of us? If :
- you do not operate airasia and put the promotions everywhere, how can we fly to other country with cheapest price?
- If Tony Fernandez does not stay in the airport to meet the customers, to know what customers need, and have a passion to serve people, knowing people difficulties, how can I bring my wife, 4children, my mother in law, my father and my mother fly to other country?
- God created the world, to make people realize there is God. and we must see it. To praise and worship Him. He use Tony Fernandez to help us fly. By giving you the vision to see the imposible.
- You create the problems, and we love it.

3. By what you have done, indonesia, malaysia, singapore, thailand, laos , kamboja, myanmar, london, australia, india, received more tourists than before. Hotels, restaurant, shops, everything getting more profit. All the people where there is airasia, they love it. We are live! They are happy. Goverments in those country should give you rewards. But they do not do it nor say it. They just clap their hand. Because there is a song said”if you’re happy and you know it... clap your hands!” My mother 65 years, my father 70 years old, my mother in law 74 years, my children, my nephews, my sister in law, they are so happy these days because they know they will go to Kuala Lumpur on July 10, by airasia. Even it is still 3 months from now. For us$ 45/person return ticket. Low cost create happiness. When will you make promotion from Bali to London for Rp. 0,- cost? I do not mind order it 4 months before.

4. If i may suggests:
- Make agreement to airplanes factory, Buy more airplanes. Make it 7500planes in next 5 years. Open the route all over the world. Let People pay for that 7500planes and then fly them. Promote it:”WE buy the planes, you paid for it! Order now, fly next year”. I believe it will help airlines factories, countries in this global crisis.
- We need cheap rooms to stay during transit in Kuala Lumpur. Before we go to other destination. Nevermind if 1 small room have 6 beds. Like in the prison. Special for airasia passangers. As long as it cheaps, we are happy. In that hotel, we need 7 eleven. That’s it. Will you make that happen? Start from KL airport? Let people pay for that. ”WE built the cheap rooms for you, you paid for it! Order now, stay next year”.
Tony, i like you. You are special. I deeply thanks to you.

Best regards,
Muliadi Sumardi

Just wrapping up in London and heading back to K.L. It has been a terrific two weeks, a time of celebration (AirAsia X's inaugural flight to London on March 11), a time of frenetic activity (global media interviews, negotiations with bankers, discussions on sponsorship, etc.) and also a time for reflection, with several days spent in the south of France.

Now we just need to keep the momentum going. When the whole world seems to be enveloped in doom and gloom,

We're pushing ahead with our plans for expansion, launching new routes (several from Indonesia to Singapore next week, while AirAsia X's maiden flight from Kuala Lumpur to Tianjin, China, takes off April 2) and promoting Kuala Lumpur as the regional hub for low-cost travel.

Meantime, have been keeping track of the developments at home and thought the quote below seemed apt in the circumstances:

“There is nothing more powerful than inspirational leadership that unleashes principled behavior for a great cause. What makes a company or a government sustainable is not when it adds more coercive rules and regulations to control behaviors. It is when its employees or citizens are propelled by values and principles to do the right things, no matter how difficult the situation. Laws tell you what you can do. Values inspire in you what you should do. It’s a leader’s job to inspire in us those values.”

Will be posting my thoughts next week on Malaysia Airport Holdings Berhad (MAHB) and KLIA-EAST; more so on how this decision and the treatment by the government on the final decision will be pivotal in dictating the future of Malaysian businesses.

On my way to France to meet Airbus. Flying EasyJet, the airline that first caught my attention to low cost travel. I owe a lot to Stelios the owner who motivated me to do this eight years ago.

It's been six days since D72006 touched down on the tarmac of Stansted Airport but I am still brimming with euphoria. It's difficult to relay how I felt when I watched Azran and Kamarudin disembark from the aircraft with Asean Secretary-General, Dr Surin Pitsuwan that afternoon. I guess it was a mixture of relief - anything could have happened during the 12-hour transit - and giddy exuberance.

Still, today I can relax a little and reflect on March 11.

This has been my childhood dream since the day my mom packed me off to Epsom College for boarding school. I still have vivid memories of that day in Subang airport. I was a wide-eyed and eager 12-year old. Dressed in my dorky bell bottoms, my voice had hardly cracked and Elton John was telling Kiki Dee not to go breakin' his heart.

When I arrived in London, the weather exceeded my expectations in being grey and dreary. To a kid away from home for the first time, the English looked strangely pale. Public school felt like prison and I was dying to escape home ASAP. I remember asking mom if I could go back to Malaysia during term break but her reply was an emphatic "no" for it was simply too expensive. Thus, I was resigned to ingesting mushy peas and soggy fish pies all summer while the idea of cheap flights home germinated in my head.

I like to think that Malaysians, studying or working in the UK shouldn't ever have to feel the distance between themselves and their families. There's email, Skype and now, really cheap air fares to Kuala Lumpur with AirAsia X. I am just so proud that we have made this a reality.

And to think that just eight years ago my friend Conor McCarthy tore up my proposal for a low-fare long-haul airline when we first met. We kept to the short-haul formula which we've executed beautifully in Asia but I knew I would revisit this project somehow as I had, like my friend and partner, Richard Branson, already been inspired by the story of Sir Freddie Laker and SkyTrain.

Sir Freddie pioneered low-cost, no-frills travel in 1977 and really shook up the market for Transatlantic flights. Until SkyTrain's ridiculously cheap fares (less than £50!!), flights between London and New York were dominated by a comfortable cartel of state-supported airlines.

I see AirAsia X as carrying the torch for Sir Freddie and I wish he had been alive today to witness our first flight to London. What may have interest him was that only half of the passengers on that March 11 voyage were Malaysians. A significant number were customers travelling en-route from the Gold Coast, Melbourne and Perth. In its day, SkyTrain had actually applied for rights to fly between London and Australia. Predictably, Sir Freddie's vision for cheap "Kangaroo flights" was killed prematurely to preserve the interests of a legacy carrier. This is why we chose to name our first A330 "Semangat Sir Freddie" as a tribute to him.

A host of reasons have been given for SkyTrain's spectacular demise, but I do believe it was more a result of big bully carriers conspiring to put it out of business. Sir Freddie did, after the collapse of SkyTrain, sue for antitrust which was eventually settled out of court and I think that says a lot.

Certainly, there were other factors working against Sir Freddie too but airline economics have evolved since the late 70s. We still face the same risks of economic downturns, and high fuel costs but I think we are better equipped to mitigate these risks. Aircraft technology has improved tremendously, lowering the unit cost of carrying a passenger and this is not static. Above all, the world's middle class is growing in numbers resulting in rising demand for air travel. Air transport is becoming more of a commodity and I think it's a pity that many governments are still distorting markets by holding back the open skies effort as much as possible.

Even so, I'm pretty sure that we will see big changes in my lifetime. Sir Freddie and SkyTrain's failure was not at all in vain.

Believe the unbelievable
Dream the impossible
Never take no for an answer

We made it happen. Thanks to all of you for making an old boy's dream come true. Thank you for all your encouragement and support. It means a lot to me.

Don't stop dreaming
Love, bisous from sunny France.

Despite the rain, nothings going to stop us. That's AirAsia. Many would have called a similar event off but we just found a way. The lesson is to never give up.

That's the AirAsia spirit.

PS. Isn't the plane beautiful?

Going off to London again on Friday. Among other things, planning to do a series of media interviews to promote AirAsia X's maiden Kuala Lumpur-London flight on March 11. It's a historical occasion, the first time a low-cost carrier is linking Asia, Europe and Australia. We're very excited about it.

For all who’ve been wondering, we will also be meeting Manchester United officials again while we are in Britain next week.The media coverage on us has been fantastic this past week on Man United's invitation to AirAsia to be their main shirt sponsor. More than 70 print, broadcast and online media worldwide worldwide reported the story, with most of them even quoting directly from my blog post. Will keep you posted.

Now, on to another subject. From the time the blog was launched, there’s been lots of questions on how to be a pilot, will you take me as a pilot, etc. Everyone, it seems, wants to be a pilot with AirAsia.

Well, here's the deal. The AirAsia blog will soon launch a competition and from the entries, we'll pick 10 qualified winners and give them an opportunity to become an AirAsia pilot.

Not going to say much here but if you want a chance to fly an AirAsia Airbus, check the blog this week for details.

Just finished an AirAsia board meeting and saw the full-page advertisement in The Star taken out by Anas Zubedy of Zubedy (M) Sdn. Bhd.

Couldn't agree more with the general message. I suspect it will resonate with most Malaysians.