CEO of Capital A, Tony Fernandes once promised AirAsia passengers that there’d be a free in-flight meal once the airline makes a full recovery from the Covid-19 lockdowns. It seems that the free meal may come soon enough as the business has been doing well – in fact, so well that even the CEO himself could not book an AirAsia flight.
Yesterday (Tuesday, 5th December), Tony posted a carousel post on his official Instagram page to share an unusual scenario that happened. Rather than taking a flight using his own airline, he chose to fly with Singapore Airlines to his destination!
“No seats on @flyairasia for three flights so I had to take @singaporeair,” he wrote. As explained in the captions, apparently, the CEO did not manage to secure a seat for AirAsia flights and resorted to using another airline company from the neighbouring country. Judging by the photo posted, it appears that Tony booked an economy-class flight instead of business-class.
Netizens were tickled by the post, implying that AirAsia has been doing well since the boss himself could not get a seat. However, as expected, many also took the opportunity to complain about AirAsia in the comments section. Some suggested that the CEO did not even want to fly with his own airline, saying that the service has not improved in a long time. Others also complained about the ground staff’s service, claiming that they were rude to passengers.
A few lamented over their delayed flights as well as the expensive prices for flights to and from Sabah and Sarawak. Tony has yet to address the complaints about the ground staff issue and declining AirAsia service. He did, however, reply to the netizen regarding the ticket prices for Sabah and Sarawak flights saying, “We can’t control the oil price and the dollar strength. I came up with ‘Now everyone can fly’ and will do everything within my power to make that happen”.
He gave the same response during a press conference at Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) earlier this week where he was asked a similar question. Unfortunately, his response was not well received as many were not convinced by his answer saying that there is no reasonable excuse for ticket prices to be so expensive, especially for domestic flights as seen in the screenshots below.
Did you think Tony Fernandes was flexing?
Sources: Instagram, TheStar
