AirAsia CEO Sees Silver Lining In Financial Crisis

TOULOUSE, (France) Oct 31 -- AirAsia Berhad group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes sees a silver lining in the current global financial crisis for the low-cost airliner which has survived past turbulence.

"We have gone through SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), terrorism, the bird flu, Bali bombing. The worse was SARS but we found a way to get out of it," he said.

"During the health scare in 2003, there was no demand in passenger traffic. But we were able to create demand. With our business model, which has been successful to date, we managed to sell 5,000 seats during the SARS outbreak," said Fernandes at a press conference here Thursday.

He was here to witness the handing over of the first delivery of the first brand new A330 aircraft to AirAsia X, its low-cost long haul affiliate on Friday.

Transport Minister Datuk Ong Tee Kiat will be guest-of-honour at the ceremony.

The handover marks the first deliver of an order AirAsia X placed for 25 Airbus A330 aircraft earlier this year, and comes just weeks after AirAsia switched its entire Malaysian operations to an all Airbus A320 fleet.

Despite the current financial crisis, Fernandes said AirAsia was not cutting down on expenditure nor was it slowing down on growth.

"We are in fact talking about accelerating our orders for the remaining 24. We are looking at a few more," he said.

"Now is the right opportunity to grow while everyone else is cutting back and Airbus has the capacity. We can get sooner," he told the Malaysian media.

Also present were AirAsia X chairman Datuk Seri Kalimullah Hassan and chief executive officer Azran Osman Rani.

Earlier at a media briefing, Airbus regional communications Asia manager Sean Lee said the second A330 aircraft was scheduled to be delivered to AirAsia X by the end of this year with the entire fleet of 25 airplanes to be delivered by 2013.

Lee said since 2005, AirAsia has ordered 225 aircraft worth US$6.3 billion (list price) from Airbus, with each A320 and A330 costing US$77 million and US$200 million respectively.