Sakina Kutbuddin Motorwala
 

Datuk Tony Fernandes is the founder and CEO of  Air Asia and Air Asia X, two airlines based in Malaysia offering flights across the whole of Asia as well as to Europe and Australia. Starting an airline has been a lifelong dream for Tony Fernandes. The idea came to him when he was at boarding school at Epsom College in England. One day he phoned his mother and asked her, if he can come home during his half term holidays? The mother replied to him that she is afraid as it is too expensive. And within that few seconds Tony thought that wouldn’t it be good to have a long-haul low cost airline.

Tony was in the music business for 12 years. He knew nothing about airlines and he was working for Warner music and Virgin Records. His first boss was Richard Branson. He got tired of Americans telling him what to do and he thought it could be better if he could do his own thing. When the music business fails to embrace the internet, Tony thought it was a game set match for the industry and he quit his job in New York in Time Warner and he flew back to London, not even knowing what he was going to do. Tony always loved the thought of planes, he always thought it would be great to own an airline. He went up to Luton Airport and saw people flying around to Barcelona for nine pounds, to Paris for six pounds. At that moment he decided that he was going to do this.
Tony with his partners who were also his friends came back to Malaysia. They got the license to start Air Asia from the Prime Minister who did not give them the new license but instead asked them to go and buy an airline. He and his partners had 500,000 USD. On September 8, 2001, they signed to buy Air Asia. He and his partner Kamaruddin mortgaged their house to finance the airlines. On December 8, 2001, they paid 25 cents and took over Air Asia. They took over two planes and 250 terrified staff because suddenly they saw guys from the music business as their new owners as opposed to a big conglomerate. At the age of 36 years, Tony started AirAsia with the princely sum of 250,000 Pounds. They changed the color of the plane, they used Air Asia as the logo and started by Airbus. He did not think about whether it will work?  Will it go wrong? What are the challenges? He said to himself, “Let’s do it. If I fail, I fail. But atleast I tried.” Air Asia created a revolution by offering low-cost fares to popular destinations in Malaysia like Penang and Kota Kinabalu.

Tony likes challenges and he wanted to build a company that people enjoyed working in. He gives first priority to his employees and second priority to his customers because he believes if employees are happy, they will look after the company and its customers. Today internal branding is the most important factor. The employees should know what your brand is all about. The employees are really the biggest marketing tool and they can sell the brand to customers.

Tony works on the ground and cabin for one or two days a month. He thinks that you can’t be an effective CEO unless you get down to the ground, you cannot understand the operation and you can make some very bad decision unless you work the floor. According to him if you just sit in your ivory tower and just look at the financial reports, you are going to make some big mistakes. He thinks it’s a necessity to get down to the floor often.

Tony’s piece of advice to the people who are starting up a business, not necessarily the airline business is that
●Don’t worry about failure.
●Have a good idea that would really work.
●There is a very fine line between brilliance and stupidity, it is a very very thin line.
●Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
●Cash is king, how much money you have in a bank account.
●Market your business. You have to go out there and let people know who you are and what you stand up for.
●Surround yourself with very good people and you can never go wrong. Surround yourself with people who have the same passion and the same vision.
●Believe in your own ability to succeed and don’t let too many people push you off your dreams. It’s okay to dream. It’s okay to have a vision because from some dreams comes some reality. You got to follow your own dream and you got to be able to have ambition.
●Don’t worry about people laughing at you. Don’t worry about all the advice you give. If you have an idea, it’s in your heart, just do it.
●On branding lesson, he says, you have very less time to grab someone’s attention and so play with the best colors and play with one image so that it’s catchy and make the name as easy as possible.
●If you want to be the best, you have got to compete with the best. Don’t look to be protected. Don’t look at the government to protect you. We are as good as anyone else
●To start you need to find the right people to make it happen. The way you grow your company is not just about the product, it’s about the people in your organization.
●Being an entrepreneur there’s always going to be problems. Don’t think it is smooth sailing. Don’t look at crisis as negative, don’t get depressed. There will always be bad days but keep your spirit up and believe in what you’re doing and believe in your ability and you can be amazing in what you do.

Over the last 14 years, they had an incredible journey. For seven years out of fourteen years in the business, they have been the ‘World’s Best Low-Cost Airline’. They have gone from two aircraft to 200 aircraft. They fly over 200 routes and they have carried 300 million people. They have gone from 200,000 passengers in their first year in 2002 to the year 2016 they will carry 16 million passengers. Air Asia has gone from 200 staff to 17,000 people. Air Asia is not about one or two people. It’s about a fantastic team that all has the same vision that can make it happen. Air Asia has 62 female pilots. It’s the only airline where the winner of Miss Thailand contest is working as captain pilot.
Air Asia has a very flat structure. Anyone can ask anything. Anyone can pick up the phone to call the CEO and say this is my dream, this is what I want to do, there is no hierarchy. That’s what makes Air Asia unique. Air Asia believes that everyone has an idea and everyone can contribute. It doesn’t matter what school you went to or what university you went to or even if you left school at 13 and if you have a brain and you want to excel, Air Asia will give you the best chance. Air Asia doesn’t just look at the CV because certain people come from different economic conditions who are much smarter than highly educated people. Tony and his company want their mission in life is to help entrepreneurs, is to give people a chance.

 

 Air Asia believes in engaging the community and creating links. It never canceled the flight during the environmental disasters like tsunami, earthquake, also during a crisis like Bali bombings, SARS and also when recently it lost its one of its flight that crashed and sank in the ocean. Tony always says,” Dream The Impossible”, “Never Take No For An Answer”, “Believe The Unbelievable”.

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