If only tweets were money, Tony Fernandes’ series of
tweets condemning Malaysian Airports Holding Bhd (MAHB) could have probably paid
off AirAsia’s outstanding payments to MAHB.
The latest incident is just another row to be added to
AirAsia’s and MAHB’s feud that has been going on for many years. It seems no
matter what day, season or year, the low-cost carrier airline has never failed
to pick fights with MAHB. However, things weren’t always bad between the two.
During AirAsia’s early days it had relied on much help from MAHB to succeed. One
of the biggest helps that MAHB offered the airline is by not charging them
operation fees at any MAHB operated airports. The airline actually flourished because of MAHB’s generous act.
So how did a good relationship such as this become
sour? The answer lies with AirAsia el Capitan Tony Fernandes himself. Over the years Tony has let the world know
that he is a man of ambition and he is not afraid to pull any tricks to get to
it. It is certainly no fault to have ambition. Yet, if the ambition drives a
wedge between organisations that you need to work with, perhaps it is best to
review those ambitions again.
Tony also made it known that he wishes to have an “AirAsia
operated airport”. The project almost became a reality in 2009 when Sime Darby
decided to join in. However, the project
soon fell to the cracks with the proposed location Labu’s close proximity to
KLIA being one of the biggest contributing factors for the project’s failure. It was no secret that having two uncoordinated
airports just 10km away from each other is an aviation disaster just waiting to
happen.
Yet ever since the failure of the project AirAsia has
been adamant to put the blame on MAHB by painting them as an incompetent
airport operator. In order to prove their point, AirAsia created a prolonged
drama over the airport taxes.
When the government decided to move LCCT to klia2,
AirAsia told the public to be prepared for the increase in airport taxes. It
needs to be reminded that klia2 cannot be compared to the LCCT. At klia2, the
facilities are much better and the extra charge was to bear the cost for
facilities such as the fully automated
Baggage Handling System (BHS), aerobridges and smooth connectivity to the KLIA
main terminal building and KL Sentral by ERL.
Let’s be real, if MAHB had not included all these
facilities in the first place, AirAsia would already be complaining about the
lack of it. AirAsia wants to use it but they just don’t want to pay extra for
it. However, it’s not a problem for them
to charge people an extra RM6 per credit-card transaction. Irony much?
As of recently, AirAsia has once again made a big
issue over airport tax. The company has refused to collect airport taxes from
passengers after the passenger service charge (PSC) for international destinations beyond Asean at klia2 was
raised to RM73 from RM50.
In an interview, AirAsia chief executive Riad Asmat
claimed that the RM73 airport tax was “unfair
to passengers” given that the facilities in airports around the country,
including klia2, “were not at par” with those found in KLIA. Funny how this is
coming from the company that pocketed the so-called RM3 klia2 fees for their
own profit. Tony had said in a tweet that the RM3 fee was for AirAsia to cover
the extra costs incurred at klia2, which were over and above costs at the LCCT.
Previously, AirAsia’s customer service was busy telling the furious flyers that
the fee was charged by the airport.
But we all know this isn’t true as MAHB has explained that the
‘klia2 fee’ had been imposed and collected solely by AirAsia since the klia2
terminal started operations in 2014.
And in the latest
edition of AirAsia telenovela is bees. Yes, bees! Poor migrating bees has been
the latest victim of AirAsia’s drama. It seems that AirAsia is unbending in
finding MAHB’s fault. The company even has marked normal bee sightings that
usually happen at airsides as a sign of incompetence.
AirAsia’s main argument against MAHB is that the
latter is incompetent and the only way the situation can improve is if AirAsia takes control of the
wheel. Perhaps before their plate gets too full, it’s best they look at
themselves first and check on how they can improve their arrival time, flight
cabin space, food quality and to be more transparent towards their passengers.
With that being said, it is high time for AirAsia to
cut out the drama because no one is here for a diva show. If they believe MAHB
is non-communicative and non-proactive, then starting Twitter feuds are really
not the way to start the conversation. No one is holding Tony Fernandes and his
team from giving out criticism and opinions towards MAHB. Constructive
criticism is needed but it should be done in a manner to help the other party
to be a better version of themselves and not for the purpose to flame your own
ego.
AirAsia needs to remember that when you’re pointing a
finger to another, 4 fingers are pointing back to yourself. The airline has
branded themselves as “All Stars” however their treatment towards others are
far from the qualities of a star.
-Patrick
