The ‘small’ airline that could

HONG KONG – Some airline companies offer piped-in classical music to passengers who want to relax while glued to their headphones.

But three-month-old AirAsia would rather think Filipino when flying Pinoys to Kuala Lumpur, Macau, Bangkok, Singapore and Jakarta. The fledgling airline, which takes off at Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark, would rather play piped-in Original Pilipino Music (OPM). This means Pinoys can feast on OPM, with the likes of Regine Velasquez, Jose Mari Chan, Freddie Aguilar, Barbie’s Cradle, Nina and Slapshock playing in each trip.

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes is, after all, not just a businessman. He’s first and foremost a dyed-in-the-wool musician. He played keyboards and drums for a band. He knows musical gems when he sees them. One look at Joey Generoso when the Side A vocalist was just starting out, and at Barbie Almalbis of Barbie’s Cradle, and Fernandes knew their careers will zoom up someday. As Warner Music Regional president, Fernandes was in charge of the recording outfit’s Asian operations.

He could have gone on and on in a field he loved, hadn’t piracy reared its ugly head.

"You work so hard to break in an artist. Then someone steals him from you," Fernandes sighs.

So when someone came up to him with an offer to buy the then bankrupt AirAsia, with its two Boeing jets and $40-M debt for a token fee of only one Malaysian ringgit (P10), Fernandes made up his mind. With a heavy heart, he bid several years in the music industry goodbye and made the giant leap to travel.

"Everyone, my friend Ma-an Hontiveros included, thought I was mad," recalls Fernandes. But the AirAsia boss refused to let it bring him down. On the contrary, he grit his teeth and took the dire predictions as a challenge.

"I’m the type who gets more excited when people tell me things won’t work out," this go-getter explains.

He started with two planes flying 200,000 people twice a day. That was three-and-a-half years ago. Now, the figures have grown by leaps and bounds. AirAsia has since carried over 11 million passengers and counting.

Come December, it expects to have 100 spanking-new Airbus 320s that will beef up domestic and international flights from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Senai Airport; Johor Bahru in Malaysia; Bangkok International Airport, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta; and the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clarkfield, Pampanga.

Fernandes’ vast experience in running an Asia-based music business paid off. He knows the market inside out.

AirAsia was named Asia Pacific Airline of the Year 2003 by the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation and Developing Airline of the Year 2003 by Airfinance Journal.

Its biggest come-on is its low price. An OFW, for instance, need not pay a king’s ransom whenever he returns the Philippines or wants to visit Asian destinations to treat his family back home.

There are two ways to fly AirAsia from Manila. One is to take the three-hour ride from the Philtranco bus terminal near SM Megamall Building A (P300 per ticket) to Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, where one can get a plane booking. An easier, more convenient way is logging on to www.airasia.com (seats in both cases are on a first-come-first-served basis).

Look Ma, there are no electronic tickets! This, it turns out, is a cost-cutting measure. AirAsia saves as much as $1 per regular paper ticket through this ticketless service.

A one-way flight from Clark to Kuala Lumpur, for instance, costs P1,949. A one-way trip from Clark to Kota Kinabalu, on the other hand, is even cheaper. It costs P909.

The frequent flights also lower costs and foster efficiency. A turnaround of 25 minutes, the fastest in the region, maximizes aircraft use, lowers costs further and increases airline and staff productivity.

AirAsia’s low-fare approach further does away with frills. Instead of meals on board for instance, it has "Snack Attacks." You buy your snacks and drinks for a price onboard. Those who don’t want to part with their precious US or Hong Kong dollars can hold on to them. The cabin crew accepts Philippine pesos.

Next question: Doesn’t the low fare come with a price, like all-important personal safety thousands of miles above ground and far away from home to boot?

The answer is no. The airline’s fleet of Boeing 737-300 complies with the conditions of the International Aviation Safety and is regulated by the internationally-known Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation. AirAsia also has a $20-M agreement with GE Engineering Services for engine maintenance.

No wonder it was easy to convince David Gill, CEO of Manchester United, one of the biggest football clubs in the English Premier League, to ink a sponsorship deal with AirAsia. This means the football team’s handsome Red Devils (as the athletes are called) will act as AirAsia’s image endorsers for a year (with option to extend) starting August.

As such, the team will promote AirAsia during games, programs and other functions. Fernandes is even planning to paint one of their planes bright red, put the guys’ photos on the body and call the aircraft Red Devil (after the color of their uniforms, which happens to match that of the airline’s stewardesses’ blouse and skirt ensemble).

Football legend Sir Bobby Charlton himself marvels at the airline’s growth.

The sponsorship deal will be two-way. Manchester United will help the airline company grow even more.

This scenario works well for Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong where football is a popular sport, thanks to years of British rule. But what about the Philippines, where basketball and not football is the runaway national sport?

Fernandes has a ready answer: "Manchester is just busy with games this season. But as soon as their schedule permits, we will bring them to the Philippines and hold exhibition matches with the Filipino team."

This, Fernandes predicts, will be by the end of 2006.

The 39-year-old Malaysian of Portuguese descent is confident Filipinos will welcome the Red Devils the way Hong Kong recently greeted the athletes with screams and shrieks from the airport all the way to the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. After all, as Fernandes observes, the guys happen to be celebrities themselves. And girls look at them as heartthrobs.

This, plus a projected catchy jingle to go with promotions and the acquisition of 100 new airplanes to replace AirAsia’s existing Boeing 737-300s, is calculated to make the Kuala Lumpur-based company tops in its field.

It is also projected to make Fernandes one of the three richest men in Malaysia in no time at all. Not bad for a guy who started out with only two aircrafts and a planeload of doomsday predictions about his airline company almost four years ago (Ma-an Hontiveros has since turned ally and adviser).

After everything is said and done, Fernandes will always return to his first love: music. He plans to put up AirAsia Records to indulge the irrepressible musician in him. By then, he could have come full circle: mixing business with pleasure as only a few lucky people can.

After all, Fernandes fought windmills to turn AirAsia into the "small" airline that could. And another uphill climb to bring his adrenaline level to an all-time high will prove to be an adventure like no other all over again.