Friday, May 18, 2012

Rafidah gone off her rockers


Last Friday, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz was in the news. After attending Angkasa's 41st celebration, she commented about Open Sky Policy.

She used the opportunity to earn her keeps as Chairman of Air Asia-X to explain the virtues of continuing the collaboration between Air Asia and MAS. On May 2nd, MAS and Air Asia had called off the share swap between Tune Air and Khazanah into each other.

This will effect a potential cash injection via special issue for Air Asia-X.

Rafidah explained that all airlines will face competition when the Asean Open Sky Agreement is enforced in 2015. Thus, she reiterated to justify collaboration between MAS and Air Asia in cutting cost. The few areas for collaboration suggested were procurement, aircraft component repairs, training initiatives and technical and operational efficiency.

The problem with her statement is that she talked as though MAS people are not aware of the Open Sky Policy and as though the public is not aware of Air Asia's unscrupulous hands inside MAS. Rafidah was admired as Minister on trade matters then, but it looks like she seemed to be losing grips and being repetitive like some senile old folks.

Has she gone off her rockers?

Collaboration?

Read The Star report on Rafidah below:

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Friday May 11, 2012

Rafidah: AirAsia, AirAsia X, MAS collaboration crucial

PETALING JAYA(Bernama): All airlines in the country must be able to face challenges when the Asean open sky policy comes into force in 2015 and therefore, collaboration efforts between AirAsia, AirAsia X and Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is important, said AirAsia X chairman Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz.

"If airlines do not strengthen now, through what ever way, there will be problems. This is why AirAsia and AirAsia X is willing to continue looking at possible collaboration with MAS," she said on Friday.

She emphasised that the collaboration had nothing to do with the share-swap.

"It is about cutting cost so that we can pass the efficiencies to consumers. We have agreed at the board level to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to continue pursuing this collaboration as long as it does not violate any anti-trust law globally and bring benefits to us," she told a press conference after the Malaysian National Co-operative Movement (Angkasa)'s 41st celebration.

Following the reversal of the share swap deal, AirAsia, AirAsia X Sdn Bhd and MAS, have entered into a supplemental collaboration agreement (SA) to explore areas of mutual-need to realise savings and boost efficiencies.

The SA would focus on specific areas of collaboration while continue to comply with all relevant anti-trust laws.

Under the SA, the airlines have identified key areas for collaboration, which would result in efficiencies and cost savings, which among others, includes procurement, aircraft component repairs, training initiatives and technical and operational efficiency.

Additionally, the airlines will also continue working to further identify and evaluate opportunities to collaborate on a broad range of areas both at operational and strategic levels.

To push forward with the collaboration initiative, the three parties also signed a MOU to cooperate on two initial areas, joint procurement and aircraft component maintenance, support and repair services.

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Out of Touch

Few things must be clarified.

Firstly, no sane person would believe Air Asia would pass off any benefit to their consumers.

If they can't remit the airport tax due to Government that they have collected from consumers, cut our fingers like a deviant Yakuza that Air Asia is concerned for their consumers.

In addition, Air Asia would not design their process to have passengers wait additional one hour and a half and cancel flights at will.

Secondly, the major concern of Air Asia as a Low Cost Carrier (LCC) is to keep cost low but MAS's current business emphasis is about raising revenue.

This means that the area of cutting cost on procurement, aircraft component repairs, Engineering and training initiatives is more for Air Asia benefit.

Thirdly, Rafidah is no more a Minister and representing the Government but as Chairperson of Air Asia X, she is under the payroll of Tony F.

Left aside are the questions she raised on the Airline Rationalisation Policy in 2005 that seemed unfair to MAS. She does not act for the interest of the nation but the greedy interest of the slimy Tony F.

Talking about Open Sky Policy and CCF as the preparation for ASEAN Open Sky in 2015, what made the Government, outsider management in MAS, vultures of Air Asia and all those who keep reminding of Open Sky Policy think that people in MAS are not aware of it?

Do they think MAS has not been doing anything about it?

Ponder for a while to those who are overawe with Air Asia and their current boast of growth and claims of unstoppable growth in the future. Whom will strive in such environment?

Full service network airline or point to point LCC?

What is noticeable is that Air Asia felt the effect of MH actions? Under the CCF, they had made the new management undo in six months all the effort made to prepare for Open Sky that have been put in place by MAS.

Perhaps, it is Air Asia that is not prepared for Open Sky Policy.

MAS do not need them for all those claimed collaboration because they will be full member of One World Alliance in middle 2012 and benefit immensely from its various program including:

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Since late 2002, Oneworld member airlines have developed common specifications across their engineering and maintenance activities, reducing costs through bulk buying and parts sharing. It was also the first airline alliance to introduce interline e-ticketing across all member airlines' network. - Extract from Oneworld - Wikipedia

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For Rafidah and all those talking of Open Sky, they must be damn out of date and bordering on senility to keep repeating an old story.

Open Sky

Open Sky is an international policy concept that calls for the liberalization of the rules and regulations of the international aviation industry, particularly commercial aviation for a free-market airline industry.

It is basically a bilateral and sometimes multilateral arrangement or agreement between two or more nations.

The United States have been pursuing Open Skies agreements through bilateral agreement since 1979, and by 1982 had signed 23 bilateral air service agreements worldwide.

The first unlimited landing agreement was first signed between the US and Neatherland in 1992.

Although agreed on an Open Sky for 2015 in 2009, the US signed the Multilateral Agreement on the Liberalization of International Air Transportation (MALIAT) with Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore as early as 2001.

It is rather outdated for those talking about Open Sky now when it had been in discussion and in preparation since early 1990s.

Rafidah's memory must be failing her.

Virgin Group

For those that remembered the various Code Sharing pursued by MAS throughout the 1990s, it was MAS's game to penetrate Airports with limited landing and increase MAS frequency in those sectors.

Back then, there were Airlines that had MAS "supplied" the aircraft for them to increase capacity and frequency to enable MAS to penetrate those market.

Rafidah wouldn't know. Tony F and his cronies destroying MAS from inside wouldn't know too.

Yours truly was monitoring the MAS counter when it was making Code Sharing arrangements with KLM, Virgin Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines, British Midlands, etc.

Yes, Virgin Groups is one of the shareholders (16%) in Air Asia-X. Another is Robert Milton's ACE Aviation Holdings the parent company of Air Canada.

To understand Air Asia from this perspective, refer to this extract from Wikipedia:

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AirAsia was established in 1993 and began operations on 18 November 1996. It was originally founded by a government-owned conglomerate, DRB-Hicom. On 2 December 2001 the heavily-indebted airline was bought by former Time Warner executive Tony Fernandes's company Tune Air Sdn Bhd for the token sum of one ringgit (about USD 0.26 at the time) with USD 11 million (MYR 40 million) worth of debts. Fernandes turned the company around, producing a profit in 2002 and launching new routes from its hub in Kuala Lumpur, undercutting former monopoly operator Malaysia Airlines with promotional fares as low as MYR 1 (USD 0.27).

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Not mentioned was Tony tookover Air Asia with RM70 million contract in hand.

Just like Air Asia established many Air Asia bases in Asia, Virgin Airlines operates from various outfits like Virgin Atlantics, Virgin Blue, Virgin America, Virgin Australia, and Virgin Nigeria. All the Airline is place together in Virgin Airlines.

Singapore Airlines bought 49% into Virgin Group's Airline Holding Company with Virgin Group still holding 51% in 2000.

Is what's happening to MAS since the time of Tun Abdullah fit a certain picture and a certain accusation against him?

Khazanah should know or they pretend not to know these links. When she was Minister, Rafidah should be aware of this or has senility got the better of her?

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr Brick. Have you noticed that everybody is looking at MAS as the only one having the problem. Why hasn't anybody looked at Air Asia Group to see if they too have a problem and they also need MAS to bail them out?

Anonymous said...

everytime I see the mamats at both end ....... POONDEKKKKKK!!!

Anonymous said...

In green... one over the tower sky-high Indian and the other a tongsang ass-licking Malay keparat...oops corporate!!

Tok Mudim said...

Rafidah is good at defending her master regardless who is he.

Remember last time when her master was Tun Mahathir, and she did a good job then.

Anonymous said...

What the public do not know is that Tony F**ker needs MAS to service his planes for free. MAS has got a good MRO that even Qantas sends its planes over for B & C checks. Tony previously had to send to singapore for Plane service requirements. This is bleeding him badly. So he does send there anymore. He simply stop servicing his planes to the extant that one of air asia x plane had a mishap in europe but that story never got to Malaysia.

So now Tony puts his man in MAS MRO and he gets to service his planes for free. Just like he doesn't pay MAHB for the airport charges and Petronas for the fuel. Then he goes to town shouting the govt never help him. During Tun 'sleepy' Lah time he got a discount from govt of RM25million on taxes because Air Asia brought tourist. What crap! And yet that ungreatful bas**rd says govt doesn't help him.

Now he wants MAS to buy the Airbus he has ordered and throw away the Boeing 737 that is being ordered. Remember the 200 airbus that he ordered during Paris Airshow. This is because CiMB is over exposed due to financing of his planes so is KFH. Therefore, in order to save money get MAS to buy his planes and he can earn so commission as well. Then he gets MAS to buy the parts for the planes and use it for his planes part of the CCF. He is a winner!

Did we forget that Air Asia was sued by the Australian govt for cheating the public.

Wasn't his F1 team stole Force India technology know how?

Didn't MAS pay £18million just to sponsor QPR home jersey while air asia get 2 away jersey for free?

Wasn't he the one that got malaysian govt to sponsor F1 team 1Malaysia got proton to come on board to use lotus name then change it to team lotus.....then tried through back door to use the name team lotus exclusively for his team?

How soon one easily forgets!

Why did he appoint Rafidah and kick out Pahamin? Because he usefulness has come to an end. He needs Rafidah so that the Old Man Tun M would not say anything against him. Very simple.

So now everyone understands? his game of cheating n manupilating, everyone can run an airline.

Anonymous said...

You obviously is the one just like the Wee Wee who just blog away and think you know what the airlines business is about. No wonder MAS is in a mess pampering to people of your likes.

Obviously to cover up your knowledge and weakness in these matters, the obvious choice is to always do scappegoating and look for support via other means like spreading hate and whatnot on others.

When are you going to grow up?

A Voice said...

Anon 9.22

You obviously need fact and argument to back your allegations. Otherwise it is not believable.

My advice to you is to not comment anything here unlesz you have substance.

Anonymous said...

Its not like you to hantam someone using arguments substantiated by Wikipedia, voice.
There are a lot of other stronger points, backed with solid data which you can easily get online and in both companies' statements- and by talking to people in the know who would happily share info.

Ni ada udang disebalik posting ke?

Little Bird

Kamal said...

Bro.
I beg to differ.Actually Rafidah is right.The manaemnt of MAS including Johari admit to me recently that A.Asia boss Tony and Kamaruddin had command great respect among the Airlaine industry.The can negotiate batter term for part supplier,Purchase of airline fuel and inventories management.In fact MAS is learning from the success of AIir Asia in managing airline.
MAS biggest challange is how to manage his 20 thousand workers and half of them were unproductive.They cant sack them because of political implacition and UNION.
MAS will continue to be unprofitable and we as tax payer will have to continue supporting them.

A Voice said...

Little Bird

please do so to dispute me.

The wikipedia info quoted are basic info which tallies with what we have written before.

Since when did i not used wikipedia for basic info?

Nevertheless, you are welcome to dispute me with fact and references

Hopefully you are not sent by some stupid, ill informed and out of touch government agency trying hard to defend air asia as pak lah s past folly by accusing anyone opposing air asia as pkr sympathiser

Hardly . . . pakatan and pkr are pro air asia. Informed pro govt ppl are anti air asia.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Voice

There could be another angle to the AA-MAS forced marriage now ending in divorce. I heard that AA's main financier is shitting bricks. With oil prices going above the US$100/barrel, the LCC AA is going in one definite direction -- JUNAM.

The CEO of AA's main financier last week literally was weeping in public, lamenting what could have been IF the AA-MAS marriage had not been aborted. Still singing the old tune -- it was a marriage made in the heavens. And it was so damn bad that the people of Malaysia think otherwise.

Imagine - when AA JUNAM, financier bank would definitely terjunam.

The suggestion that the AA-MAS marriage was to save the financier begins to make a lot of sense. Otherwise the Government and Khazanah's position on the marriage DOES NOT make any sense at all.

Thank you.

A Voice said...

Kamal

I heard the same too and before the cancellation :)

it is not easy for me to believe him whole heartedly when he complimented Airasia for its engineering. Yet the chap he brought in to head engineering from Airasia is not quakified.

Secondly he is hardly a year in the aviation industry. Some messengers, staff and low level officers in MAS are longer and maybe more in touch of development in the industry than AJ.

Maybe he is being polite, but i do believe AJ is serious when he said he has much to learn. :)

Anonymous said...

Quite the contrary. I am and have always been a STRONG MAS supporter. I am also a shareholder of MAS (minority but still holding on despite having my rights trampled on by the majority shareholders and management) and have no desire to offload it, because I care about it.

I am NOT a govt minion out to defend Tun Dol, as you accuse me. It's because I believe he was the one who effectively sent MAS into this black hole it's in now because of his/4th floor unfair policies which favoured Air Asia. I refuse to fly Air Asia and have/would rather pay more and fly MAS as a matter of principle.

I do not dispute the veracity or accuracy of your posts fr Wiki at all. As an avid follower of your blog, I usually see your arguments much stronger than what I see in this one, which were very basic. You probably have access to a lot of people who are in the know/specialists in the industry. So, i expected more, no offence intended.

Chill out la. Why drag party support into this? FYI, I have always been a strong BN supporter to the point that I actively turun padang during election campaigns for UMNO as a young professional.

Little Bird

Anonymous said...

A Voice

You are well informed.

Is the government agency you mention to be MKN led by Tun Dol former Principal Secretary, Dato Thaj?

A Voice said...

Little Bird

I m cool.

Neither am i accusing you.

But looks like someone is guessing who the agency is but i m not confirming :)

Allow me time to buildup the story.

Anonymous said...

Anon 9.22pm

I am anon 9.08pm.

I have facts and I am telling you the truth. You Please check your facts rather than making baseless accusations.

It is borderless world and information flows freely. Do you know that Air Asia X had 2 mishaps in Australia for not obeying to ATC directions on approach? This is due to the fact that they did not have proper flight training academy until only recently. That is also due to pinching MAS trainers to start up the academy.

Anon 9.22 Tell me when does Air asia service its aircraft? Hardly! They they run the planes, they put express buses to shame. If ONLY our DCA is as pwerful as the FAA or EASA, may be the Air Asia would be repremanded.

So next time Anon 9.22 unless you have substance, please don't make a fool out of yourself.

Anonymous said...

Anon 9.22pm

This Anon 9.08pm

BTW, I am in the airline industry and have been for a long time that I need not refer to Wiki for info.

Just to set the record straight

Anonymous said...

Kamal 10.14pm

said that: "....A.Asia boss Tony and Kamaruddin had command great respect among the Airlaine industry."

I beg to differ. Actually many in the industry know how they manipulate thier ways. Example is the ordering of the Airbus A320 NEO. The aircraft is NOT in existence, it is merely a concept aircraft just like B737 MAX. What Tony does he signs early, book the slots for production. One must remember that producing an aircraft takes weeks and only a handful can be produced in a year. So what he does is, should anyone requires a plane urgently, he will give up his slot for a later slot at a fee. Therefore, he makes money. That is one of his manipulative ways.

Then there is the issue of non payment for MAHB which is still not resolved till today and he owes MAHB BILLIONS!

Well, one can only say that he was born in the right country....ONLY IN MALAYSIA

Anonymous said...

Anon 9.22

Wonder if you happen to be rafidah.

They way you ask others to grow up sounds like her doing her heckling.

Anonymous said...

A Voice,
My 2sens worth:
LCC model of continuos expansion to roll money will suffer in 2012 due to economic downturn. In order to survive, AK has got to further reduce costs and make some money from ancillary businesses.
Maintainance with ST Aerospace in Singapore requires prompt payment, why not CCF with MH cos can get cheap rate (half the market price) and can differ/avoid payment at the expense of MH!
Certain routes where passenger loads are good consistently, after CCF MH declared loss on those sectors and Pulled out whilst AK increase theirs. Eg Bandung, Surabaya , Haneda etc. - remove competition for confirmed revenue at the expense of MH!
Increase revenue from pilot training (AACAE jv). After CCF , MH simulators are in the midst of being taken over and all future MH pilot training, AK will make money at MH expense!
Who is saving who?
Learn from AK? To do what, to con even the people in charged which are 'ill informed'?!

Olek Skilgannon said...

I am not sure I buy your arguments.

First things first. The Asean Open Skies agreement, which takes off in 2015, will see airlines incorporated in Asean countries being able to operate unlimited flights between Asean capitals.

It means, for example, that Thai AirAsia and AirAsia Indonesia will be able to operate any number of flights between Bangkok and Jakarta respectively and KL.

How, exactly, will this benefit MAS, when the game is about volume and pricing? Why would passengers want to fly a full service premium airline like MAS (or SIA, Garuda and Thai Airways) when they have several LCCs (AirAsia, Lion Air, Mandala, Tiger Air and Jetstar Asia) to choose from?

SIA, for one, has already seen the writing on the wall. It's handing off most of it's low-margin regional routes to it's SilkAir unit.

Is MAS able to do the same with Firefly, when the latter is very much a work-in-progress, with significant refleeting expenditures on the horizon in terms of acquiring narrow-body jets? By the time it does so, the LCCs would have already locked in the market. Case in point: LCCs already account for about 35% of the traffic at Changi Airport. I would hazard a guess that the figure for KLIA is in the same ballpark.

So, where is the game changer for MAS, that the other Asean airlines haven't already thought of, or implemented?

Second, membership of an airline alliance is not a panacea, if the underlying fundamentals are not fixed.

What does MAS bring to the table that could prove attractive to the likes of British Airways, Qantas and Cathay Pacific? Would it be seamless connectivity between foreign cities and Malaysian destinations routed through KLIA?

That, in turn, presupposes that KLIA is a major regional air hub and transit location. Is it, compared with Bangkok and Changi Airports in terms of connectivity?

Third, is MAS going to operate a hub-and-spokes or a point-to-point model, or some combination of the two? This means that it has to operate a mixed fleet of wide-body long haul aircraft and narrow-body short and medium haul aircraft. Does it have the balance sheet resources and access to funding that will allow it to do so?

A comparison of SIA and MAS, in terms of fleet size and aircraft on order is instructive. What impact will MAS have, for example, with 6 A380 aircraft over the next 2 years, when SIA already has 15 operational A380s, with more on the way?

Fourth, how is MAS going to face up to the competition from the Gulf airlines (Emirates, Qatar Air and Etihad) and their massive hub airports in Dubai and Qatar? Emirates, for example, can fly from Australia, pick up passengers in KL and transit them through Dubai, seamlessly, to London and destinations in the Middle East, Europe and the US.

Fifth, and this is of fundamental importance - for MAS to survive and thrive as a full service premium carrier, it has to have access to a ready pool of passengers willing to pay premium business and first class airfares. That, in turn, requires KL to be a major business hub. Is it, when compared with Hong Kong and Singapore?

SIA and Cathay Pacific, for instance, get more than 40% of their revenues from their premium cabins. Can MAS compete in this rarefied segment when it doesn't have the catchment of potential passengers to tap?

In sum, the points that Rafidah was trying to make are pretty fundamental. Every airline CEO is wrestling with the same problems. MAS is not magically immune from these problems, and vilifying AirAsia is missing the point.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Anon 3.31pm

Point taken and this was addressed by the previous Board Of MAS, they slowly turned Firefly to be regional by having 6 B737-800 with expansion plan until China.

What happened? Air Asia was losing its pax on the Kuching and KK sector. So TF created this scheme of S"hare Suap" Then Danny the Nanny came on board clip the wings of Firefly by cancelling it jet services leaving 7,000 pax stranded to be uploaded to MAS.

So Tony the Mother Fuc**r got his way and Eddy Leong was terminated!

So Anon 3.31pm pleasse do not state as if Air asia and TF are Angels!

Anonymous said...

Hi All,

Talking about Rafidah....she serves her master real well. Remember when Tun Dol Lah was the PM, she went barking against Tun M on the AP issue.

Her remarks here is only to serve Tony and the Political masters. Nothing more

Anonymous said...

Skilgannon

You will and have never agree because you think tony f the devil is an angel. Your parents fail as parents.

Olek Skilgannon said...

Anon 7:15 PM

I would be inclined to take you more seriously if you can rebut the points that I raised.

For example, is MAS competing in a zero-sum game against AirAsia or is it competing against every airline in Asean and the region.

Point: is MAS over-staffed in terms of revenue and profit per employee compared with it's competitors?

Point: what is MAS's CASK and RASK compared with other full service premium airlines?

Simple enough questions, yes?

Anonymous said...

Airasia is a crook and conduct their business in a dishonest manner.

Still prefer MAS.

Feel cheated to use AirAsia.

Hope MAS get their act in order.

THE TROUBLESHOOTERS said...

Good expose'.

More spin here
http://mastroubleshooters.blogspot.com/2012/05/bernama-or-star-spin.html

My Say