By Lee Wei LianKUALA LUMPUR, Dec 31 — When Air Asia re-launched in 2001, many, myself included, wondered about the viability of a little-known, formerly bankrupt budget airline that sold Kuala Lumpur-Penang flights for RM9.
Surely running an airline is an operation that required the backing of national governments, or at the very least billions of dollars and the involvement of well-known industry veterans? Surely it can’t be headed by a former music executive whose biggest brush with fame before that was he once lunched with Madonna?
But we know now, of course, that Air Asia was destined to be a game changer and Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes — or Tony as he likes to be called — loves that he has defied convention and proven the skeptics wrong. AirAsia has not only thrived it is even threatening to surpass various national airlines in size.
“If the world is about logic, there wouldn’t be a Steve Jobs,” he told journalists he hosted at a luxurious hospitality box at the Singapore Night Race a few months ago, a remark that seems to sum up his philosophy to business.
And like the man behind that other game-changing company whose logo resembles a half eaten apple and whose products are a hit all over the world, Tony has managed to create not just a business but an icon.
His success is multi-layered. He scored big in business terms but he also made an impact socially, enabling millions to travel by plane who previously could not afford it and the trail he blazed is what Malaysia needs to follow in its quest to play in the major league of developed nations, making him our pick for Entrepreneur of the Decade.
Air Asia, the region’s largest budget carrier, is arguably the country’s most famous brand, a household name not only here but increasingly even in developed countries like Singapore, Australia and the UK. The eight-year-old company whose tagline is “everyone can fly” is also profitable and at current growth projections could be the second largest airline in Asia by 2013 by passenger volume, behind only Japan Airlines. There were questions about the stability of the company due to the high level of its borrowings but a fund-raising exercise in September has put the company on a firmer financial footing.
Fittingly for an entrepreneur, it is not just about dollars and cents but about dreams. And pop culture.
That and his flair for marketing and bucking conventional wisdom. That is the kind of thinking that the country sorely needs as it struggles to move up the economic value chain.
Perhaps due to his music industry background, he appreciates pop culture, something Malaysian brands will have to learn if they are to have any mass appeal and go global.
Like Jobs — who once remarked in an interview that the problem with his archrival Microsoft was that “they have no taste in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product” — Tony thinks global and reaches out to customers by appealing to their cultural senses.
From the very beginning, he tried to inject colour and personality into the Air Asia brand — from the chilli-inspired uniforms of the cabin crew to the cheeky advertisements (One ad in Singapore poked fun at Singapore Airlines taunting: “There is a new girl in town. She’s twice the fun and half the price”).
His plan is to build an ecosystem of “lifestyle” companies ranging from sports (besides Lotus F1, he also recently launched a South-East Asian professional basketball league) to mobile communications (Tune Talk) to hotels (Tune Hotels) to airlines and perhaps soon even music and supported by financial services (Tune Money).
But why sports?
“Sport is a large element of people’s lives,” he said. “Millions of people watch it. It’s time to build our own brands. When Manchester United comes to South-East Asia I see 99 per cent of the people who come to watch wear T-shirts of foreign teams. It’s sad for me.”
He is also well aware of the willingness of people to spend on their sporting interests noting that certain F1 teams sell some RM750 million worth in T-shirts alone.
“We have to raise people’s aspirations,” he added. “We can’t just be planting (oil palm) trees. It is most important to be an innovator.
“I grew up going to the racing circuit in Batu Tiga. I want (Malaysian) kids, when they drive past the (Lotus) F1 team centre to be inspired.”
The danger for Tony is how to sustain his momentum now that he has so much more to look after besides Air Asia.
Already the novelty of Air Asia seems to be wearing off and there are some complaints that fares are no longer as cheap as it used to be. Most recently, the Lotus F1 team was dealt a blow when national oil company Petronas decided to sponsor Mercedes instead.
Clearly, there are challenges ahead. But that is unlikely to deter him much.
“Life is much more fun when you try and change the way things are done,” he famously said.
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