Now Everyone Can Fly AirAsia

摘要

As a young boy growing up in Malaysia and later as a student in southern England, Anthony Francis Fernandes loved to visit airports and spend countless hours planespotting (Airways, April 2003). He says that such trips made him feel the joy that travel brought to passengers, and even then he dreamed of one day creating an airline of his own, a low-cost airline opening travel to all economic classes, especially the "underserved." An avid sportsman and music lover, Tony Fernandes learned the rudiments of salesmanship and marketing from his savvy mother who used to hold Tupperware parties at their home, with the six-year-old providing piano accompaniment to the original jingles his mother had composed to move the goods. They were a formidable team. Much later, in 2001, the young entrepreneur-who started in the music industry with Virgin Records-seized an opportunity to buy the floundering state-owned Air Asia for precisely one ringgit (26 US cents)-while instantly incurring a debt of $10 million.