Tony Fernandes -The Rockstar of the Skies

Posted on Sep 17, 2013 | Comments Off 7

Six-year olds can have stupid ambitions. At least that is what a no-nonsense father thought when his son announced one day that he will own an airline when he grows up. If you make it past the doorman of Hilton Hotel, I will be happy, the physician father had said. Today, the very man in question owns AirAsia. This rock star of the ASEAN skies is Tony Fernandes. Tony was born in Malaysia but moved to the UK to attend boarding school in 1977 and stayed in the country for 13 years. An avid sports fan whom enjoys football and squash, he wanted to become a professional cricket player but did not make the cut. The man, who spent much of his youth studying in England,got out of a great career in the music business to plunge into a dream of running an airline. He mortgaged his house and, together with some friends and investors, bought AirAsia. Back then it was then a moribund Malaysian operation that cost 1 ringgit ($0.28) and brought with it 40 million ringgit in debt and two Boeing 737-300 aircraft.When he told his wife he was going to start an airline, his wife laughed and said, Why cant you think of something simple? Tony replied, Life is short. If I fail, I fail.

Fernandes first envisioned cheap flights across Asia as a young boy. Being at boarding school in Epsom in southern England far from his childhood home in Malaysia meant that half-term visits were out of the question. The biggest blow was when his dear mother passed away and he could not afford the fees to fly back. The disappointment of that event eventually fueled his ambition to make flying affordable and the idea of AirAsia was born. I always dreamt about doing a long haul low-cost airline, he remembers. For my first ever flight in Air Asia X, I refused to do the launch to Australia and China and everyone thought it was a bit odd. But I wanted my first flight to be London-Kuala Lumpur.It was very emotional for me 35 years on. Tony adopts a walk around management style.If you sit up in your ivory tower and just look at financial reports, youre going to make some big mistakes. For a few days every month he works on the ground or in the cabin crew. He says hes learned a lot from working on the airline himself. When we moved from the 737 to the Airbus, the Airbus is slightly higher off the ground and my guys said we need belt loaders. It would have cost us about a million US dollars. We used to just put the bags manually into the cargo hold on a 737.So he turned the idea down. But on his next stint working alongside staff, he says he almost broke his back loading the plane. I said Ron, youre right, well get belt loaders I made the decision instantaneously. He says that without the experience, I could have made a decision a very wrong decision that damaged a lot of people and destroyed the morale of the organization at that level. Fernandes says that to him employees come number one, customers come number two. If you have a happy workforce theyll look after your customers anyway.You can have all the money you want in the world and you can have all the brilliant ideas but if you dont have the people, forget it. he said.

All it takes is for one person to tentatively walk up to the AirAsia chief executive and ask for a photograph. He adjusts his trademark red cap, shakes the passengers hand, puts his arm around him and smiles widely with a thumbs-up as the camera clicks. He then turns to the passenger and says: Thank you for flying with us. Within seconds, dozens of AirAsia passengers leave their food and surround him. They are waiting to have a snapshot taken with the man who made their trip affordable, and possible. The 45-year-old Malaysian happily obliges everyone