The company's chief executive and founder Tony Fernandes, who is now almost always sporting a trademark baseball cap (not unlike another budget airline CEO in Europe), may have come from the music industry, having worked for 12 years for Warner Music, but his vision and enthusiasm has helped turn a loss-making company into a profitable one.AirAsia is also waiting to hear from the Singaporean authorities regarding an application for an air-operator certificate.Though the company was not the first low-cost airline in Asia, it has certainly been the most successful and has managed to achieve a low operation cost of 2. The company will team up with RHB Bank in Malaysia to launch a similar card in two months and with Thailand's Capital OK in the fall.5 million debt, and set upon transforming the regular airline into a no-frills one. It has just tied up with DBS Bank in Singapore to launch a new MasterCard credit card, which will provide customers not only with discounts and benefits from participating merchants but also earns them free flights on AirAsia routes. to form the first no-frills carrier there.
Mortgaging his house and pulling together his savings, he founded Tune Air Sdn Bhd in 2001 with three partners. cents per ASK (available seat kilometer), which Fernandes claims is the lowest in the business.Fernandes is hoping the IPO will help make the company even more competitive, while strengthening its balance sheet.Fernandes got the idea of a budget airline while seeing Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of easyJet, on TV in London.The carrier has been able to successfully tap the rising Internet market in the region and even launched the world's first SMS ticket reservation service in Malaysia.S.
The carrier plans to float some 25 percent of its shares to raise about $200 million.Of course, its low ticket prices have been the underlying reason of its success. Started only two years ago from the ashes of a regular carrier, the company's fleet has grown from a modest two Boeing 737-300 planes to 14 aircraft, and this number should rise further to 30 by the end of the year. However Qantas announced Tuesday it would be a 49. Internet bookings now make up 45 percent of the automobile bearing company's total sales.5 U. Over the next two years, AirAsia concentrated solely on the internal Malaysian market.9 percent shareholder in a new Singapore-based low-cost carrier teaming with Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government's investment arm. There have been talks of interest of a possible team up with Virgin, and there was also speculation that Australian flag carrier Qantas Airways, which itself will launch a domestic offshoot called Jetstar in May, was interested
