Forbes India – August 4, 2017

By Anshul DhAmijA

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes on making money

in the domestic market and on unifying AirAsia

‘I am Not in a Rush

to Fly International

Out of India’

T

ony Fernandes, group CEO

of Asia’s largest low-cost

carrier AirAsia, has set his

sights on integrating all of

the airline’s operations in Southeast

Asia into one holding company and

creating a single airline entity that

would represent the Association of

Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)

region. “If you look at it, we are

probably the most successful Asean

brand,” Fernandes, 53, says in an

exclusive interview to Forbes India on

the sidelines of the 52nd International

Paris Air Show at Le Bourget. At

present, the different entities of

the AirAsia Group include AirAsia

Berhad (Malaysia), AirAsia Indonesia,

Thai AirAsia, Philippines AirAsia,

AirAsia X, Indonesia AirAsia X and

Thai AirAsia X. Outside of the Asean

countries, there is AirAsia Japan and

AirAsia India, which, since its start

in 2013, has had a bumpy ride. “India

is a country I don’t want to screw up

[in]! I want to do it right,” Fernandes

says, going on to talk about AirAsia

India’s shift in strategy: From eyeing

international operations to focusing on

the domestic market. Edited excerpts:

Q Can you elaborate on your

plans of unifying AirAsia,

particularly your Southeast Asia

operations, into one airline?

Yes, I’m trying to unify AirAsia into

one airline—a unique corporate

structure within Asean (comprising

Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,

Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines,

Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).

Asean has approximately 700 million

people and we [AirAsia] have created

an Asean tourism market that was

not there before. We are pushing

Asean governments, saying we

want to invest more in the region.

What we would like to do is create one

holding company that would own 100

percent of all our airline companies

operating in Asean countries. This

would allow us to invest more,

reduce costs and enable us to be

much more efficient. And there is no

reason why this holding company

cannot be listed in all the Asean

markets. Hopefully, in the future,

there will be an Asean stock market.

Part one of my plan is to list our

Philippines and Indonesia companies,

which will happen soon. [The

Malaysia and Thailand entities are

already listed]. If it were left to me, and

I don’t run countries, I would create an

Asean holding company in two weeks!

Q In recent months, you have

gone on record to say that you are

“driving AirAsia to be a digital

airline”. How is this shaping up?

We are doing a lot of fintech joint

ventures, which is also part of my

one AirAsia plan. We are going to

remove cash [transactions] off the

plane soon with our own version

of Alipay and PayPal. We will also

have our own version [a digital

platform] for money transfers.

We are working with Huawei on

smart airports. I’m in favour of getting

rid of check-in counters and looking

at self-boarding. We are working

on facial recognition, whereby

passengers can board an aircraft

using their face. And that will cover

people with plastic surgery as well!

The worst experiences in flying

are the airports, security and

immigration—it’s a pain! We want

visas to be electronic as opposed to

going and standing in a queue. Surely,

with all the data we have, we more

or less know whether someone is a

safe traveller or not. We are trying to

create a trusted traveller programme

and are working with Chinese,

American and Australian companies

to help us in this endeavour.

Q Your India operations have

been plagued by controversy and

slow growth. What went wrong?

Many airlines have come, made a lot

of noise in India and disappeared.

It’s all about doing it properly and

“The level of

trying to get rid of

us is much worse

here in India.”

Interview

68 | forbes india August 4, 2017