SINGAPORE – One of the best-known names in global aviation is preparing to step back from the front lines.

Mr Tony Fernandes, the larger-than-life character credited with revolutionising budget air travel in Asia, plans to focus more on areas such as health, education and private equity. 

The 58-year-old Malaysian will be moving on as the industry emerges from Covid-19. Like other carriers, AirAsia, the group he founded, was floored by the pandemic. It is no longer quite the empire it once was, having closed down ventures in Japan and India, but it still operates airlines out of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, and plans a Cambodia launch. 

“Good leadership is to know when to go,” he said in a recent interview in Singapore. “Aviation as my journey might be coming to an end. I have got to talk about succession planning. Exactly when I press the button, I don’t know, but I want to talk about it because I want to attract the right leaders.” 

Rapid growth

Mr Fernandes, who grew up in Malaysia and Britain, dived into airlines in his mid-30s, buying AirAsia from a government-owned conglomerate in September 2001 for a solitary Malaysian ringgit, about 30 US cents at the time. 

After starting out with just two planes, AirAsia rebranded as a low-cost, no-frills carrier in January 2002, offering flights in Malaysia for as little as US$3 and, in some promotional cases, even for free. By early 2004, it was flying from Kuala Lumpur to a handful of international destinations and soon established regional carriers like AirAsia Thailand.

With the motto “Now Everyone Can Fly”, AirAsia’s red-and-white planes became a popular choice for jetting to places such as Bangkok, Singapore, Jakarta and Phnom Penh. The cheap tickets helped supercharge a boom in flying in the region, feeding the needs of a growing middle class wanting to travel and cutting out long boat journeys between thousands of islands. 

“Tony was the first to exploit the market for discount flying,” said Mr Shukor Yusof, founder of aviation consultancy Endau Analytics, who first met Mr Fernandes at an AirAsia event at the Intercontinental Hotel in Singapore in 2002. “His contribution in making low-cost carriers (LCCs) a way to fly in this region is huge.” 

Mr Fernandes has been the face of the company, a high-profile figure with a range of interests – from co-owning a Formula One team and a London-based football club to hosting an Asian version of hit TV show The Apprentice. 

Mr Tim Bacchus, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong, said: “Tony’s impact has been to demonstrate the importance of branding, as well as the key element of being the first mover... It is fair to characterise Fernandes as a true pioneer of LCCs in Asia and someone who had the vision to bring the model to this part of the world, making air travel more affordable to many.” 

Now, Mr Fernandes aims to channel some of his experience with AirAsia elsewhere.

“I like private equity with an active management and helping young people change things,” he told Bloomberg News. “I believe there is a low-cost model for education and health. These are the two things that discriminate (against) people the most.”

As for who will take the reins at AirAsia, he said he would prefer someone from within the company and South-east Asia, at the heart of the airline’s operations, although he did not rule anything out. 

“Honestly, I don’t care where they are from,” he said. “We don’t really talk about race, religion, sex, sexual orientation – I don’t care, as long as you can do the job.”

Opportunity knocks

Mr Fernandes graduated in 1987 with an accounting degree from the London School of Economics and later worked as a financial controller at billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Media Communications in London. Years later, in 2011, Mr Branson shaved his legs and dressed as a flight attendant on a charity AirAsia flight after losing a bet to Mr Fernandes. 

Mr Fernandes moved back to Kuala Lumpur in 1992 to become general manager of Warner Music Malaysia. He mortgaged his home in 2001 to establish Tune Air with his partners, and used that entity to take over AirAsia.

He has said he sensed an opportunity in aviation while sitting in a London bar watching EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou speaking on television about low-cost flying. It was around the time that companies like Lastminute.com had also become widely recognised online travel start-ups and investor darlings. “Wow, is this the calling?” he thought, he told CNBC in 2018. 

“He is quick to read and exploit market opportunities, whether dancing himself silly on TikTok or sharing words of wisdom to young people,” said Endau’s Mr Yusof, who is based in Malaysia.

Big orders

Airbus gained from AirAsia’s emergence, with the carrier going on to become one of the European manufacturing giant’s biggest customers. At the Farnborough Airshow in 2014, Mr Fernandes marked a nearly US$14 billion order for 50 wide-body aircraft with a kiss on the cheek of Airbus’ chief operating officer. 

Long-haul unit AirAsia X was lined up as a top customer for Airbus’ new A330neo wide-body jet, making about US$23 billion (S$30.7 billion) in orders, although it ultimately committed to only 15 aircraft as it struggled to grow. Low-cost, long-haul flying turned out to be a tough sell, with customers preferring full-service options with free refreshments and more amenities on lengthy journeys.

Productivity and cost benefits that budget carriers achieve on short-haul flights “diminish with sector length and equipment gauge, ultimately disappearing on long-haul, larger gauge, international operations”, said Mr Robert Mann, New York-based head of aviation consulting firm R.W. Mann & Company. “AirAsia X was no exception, though Fernandes may have initially thought otherwise.” 

Challenging times

It certainly has not all been a smooth ride. In 2020, Mr Fernandes stepped down as chief executive officer of AirAsia amid a Serious Fraud Office bribery investigation in Britain relating to an Airbus order, although he was later cleared. The Indian authorities are also investigating him in a probe into payments being used to influence public policy.

AirAsia also experienced tragedy in 2014, when a flight crashed into the sea in Indonesia, claiming 162 lives. The disaster was blamed on a crack in the soldering of an electronic component on a rudder, as well as pilot error.

More recently, Covid-19 presented unprecedented challenges to the industry as a whole. The International Air Transport Association estimates that carriers worldwide lost US$200 billion over the past three years. The key market of China – closed off to international travel for longer than anywhere else – will likely take at least another year to get back to pre-pandemic air travel levels. 

“We have just been through the worst crisis of our life,” Mr Fernandes said. “Culture is what kept this airline together.”

AirAsia’s passenger traffic dropped to just 4.8 million in 2021 from almost 52 million in 2019, with the company having to ground most of its roughly 200-strong fleet as travel restrictions eviscerated demand. 

“Tony’s charisma and ability to energise are exceptional. I once asked him to be keynote speaker at a sales rally and had to bring in the police to protect him from exuberant fans,” said DBS Bank chief executive Piyush Gupta, who has known Mr Fernandes since 2003. “Less well known, however, are his tenacity and resilience and willingness to hang in there.”

Even with air travel broadly recovering as 2023 progresses, high fuel prices and wider economic issues may continue to limit demand, and the days of ultra-cheap flights look numbered as airlines try to scrape out profits. 

“There has not been a great return of capital,” said Mr Fernandes. “I think airfares have been too low.” 

Yet AirAsia is still offering US$70 return fares between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore for the Labour Day holiday weekend in May. The cheapest ticket on Singapore Airlines for the same travel dates stands at US$186, figures from Booking.com show. 

Business revamp 

While the airline still operates under the AirAsia brand, Mr Fernandes revamped the business in 2022, changing its name to Capital A, which operates a so-called super-app that can be used to book tickets, hotels, taxis and food, as well as offering fintech services.

He has said the rebranding better reflects the group’s status as an investment holding company with interests in travel and lifestyle, and helps outline that it is not “just an airline any more”.

Capital A expects non-airline operations to account for about 50 per cent of total group revenue by 2026, paving the way for him to leave his beloved AirAsia airline in the hands of a successor and shift into other areas of business. 

“I’ll never not do anything,” he said. “I’ll always do something.” BLOOMBERG