Asia's premier budget airline faces severe financial turbulence that won't easily be course corrected
When Tony Fernandes acquired AirAsia nearly two decades ago, the then- music industry executive paid a mere 1 Malaysian ringgit (23 US cents) to take the bankrupt carrier off a state-owned conglomerate’s hands.
Against the odds, Fernandes lifted AirAsia into Southeast Asia's largest budget carrier on a “Now everyone can fly” motto that pioneered the low-cost aviation industry by leveraging strategically into the region’s rapidly-emerging middle class.
But in a world now ill with Covid-19, the opposite is true: one of Asian aviation’s best-known brands now simply aims to stay aloft at a time when everyone, in fact, cannot fly. “This is by far the biggest challenge we have faced since we began in 2001,” Fernandes, AirAsia’s chief executive, said in a July 6 statement.
Lockdown measures and travel restrictions imposed earlier this year in most of AirAsia's key markets, including Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, among others, resulted in the grounding of nearly its entire fleet.
Against the odds, Fernandes lifted AirAsia into Southeast Asia's largest budget carrier on a “Now everyone can fly” motto that pioneered the low-cost aviation industry by leveraging strategically into the region’s rapidly-emerging middle class.
But in a world now ill with Covid-19, the opposite is true: one of Asian aviation’s best-known brands now simply aims to stay aloft at a time when everyone, in fact, cannot fly. “This is by far the biggest challenge we have faced since we began in 2001,” Fernandes, AirAsia’s chief executive, said in a July 6 statement.
Lockdown measures and travel restrictions imposed earlier this year in most of AirAsia's key markets, including Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, among others, resulted in the grounding of nearly its entire fleet.
Read the full story at Asia Times.
Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.
