Air Asia under flank attack

Apanama has the story on a joint venture between National Aerospace & Defence Industries Sdn. Bhd (NADI) and an Indonesian conglomerate PT Lion Group (which owns Lion Air) here and here.

Many months back when Tony Fernandez was gloating about his regional move to Indonesia, this blog touch a bit about Lion Air. Basically, Lion Air is Indonesia’s largest privately run airline, capturing the largest share of the domestic market share. Read the link here.

Our source at Malaysia Airport said they were not threatened by Tony F's stunt. They know that Tony F will not have it as good as he had in Malaysia. The Indons shove it to him to move to Indonesia or he doesn't have anything to kelentong the dumb analysts at Bursa Kuala Lumpur for their future rapid growth.

Those in the know of the Indonesian terrain knows that while there is opportunity and potential growth for Air Asia, it is not easy to grabhold off. There is the existing big players and the authorities to contend with. And they are not the priority airline unlike in Malaysia where they abused their privelage.

Looks like not only there is no growth coming for Tony F from Indonesia. Maybe our source knows that Lion Air is coming to do a flank attack on his cashcow back home. 

Prior to that ridiculous MAS-Air Asia collaboration as initiated by the duo of incompetent Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar and self centered Investment Banker, Dato Nazir Razak, there were rumour of Khazanah working on a deal with Lion Air.

It is heard that Khazanah put the deal on hold when they manage to get the collaboration going.

But it failed after hardly a year. It just proves the Analyst-Accountant duo of Azman and Danny failed to turnaround MAS and never really know what they were doing from the days of WAU. 

By the look of it, Ahmad Jauhari is trying to put MAS to it's original turnaround plan before si budak Danny Yusof and his bunch of merry mice ate up the pumpkin.

Today's paper reported AJ will reinstate Firefly and Air Asia will sure to get creamed like the last time. Firefly's turbo prop budget airlines fly from Subang and offer better service over Tony F's shit services.

It was giving him a run for his money until the idiot Danny stopped it for Air Asia on the pretext it is losing money. Not in two to three years can any airline pay back it's capex. But why was large amount of bonus given to staff?

Read Business Times below:

Firefly may revive jet ops next year

By Marina Emmanuel
Business Times, September 12, 2012

GEORGE TOWN: Firefly, a subsidiary of Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS), is believed to be returning to its jet operations as early as next year.

It had to abandon its money-making routes to Sabah and Sarawak following the now aborted MAS-AirAsia strategic collaboration exercise.

Business Times has learnt that Firefly is considering Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier Aerospace as a potential aircraft supplier to diversify from its current fleet of French-Italian-made turbo-propeller planes ATR.

“It is not known if Firefly will reinstate the East Malaysia routes, but other routes being considered when the community airline expands into jets are Myanmar and Vietnam,” aviation sources said.

Responding to Business Times’ query, MAS Sdn Bhd (formerly known as FlyFirely Sdn Bhd) chief executive officer Ignatius Ong said:

“We are looking at all turboprop options on the table which can cater to our existing network for increases in frequencies, as well as a longer range within Asean to give us more potential destinations.

“I will not focus on any specific manufacturer for now until we are more finalised in our approach,” he added.

MAS had, since early 2011, used Firefly to compete against AirAsia by launching competitively-priced flights from Kuala Lumpur to Sabah and Sarawak.

In October last year, the national carrier said the Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by Firefly will be redeployed into the parent company’s operations, effective December 4 2011.

MAS had, at the time, cited heavy losses being incurred by Firefly’s jet operations, although the community airline’s financials such as profit and loss statements have never been disclosed by the parent company.

Bombardier has been in the aerospace industry for 25 years and is touted as the world’s third largest civil aircraft manufacturer.

In recent years, the aircraft maker has won more new contracts around the world after it moved beyond the production of executive jets and entered the regional jet market.

There has been talk of AJ leaving after a year, which is very soon, but hope there is not truth. He is making progress in many areas, particularly cooperation with the unions and staff. He is addressing several key and critical issues.  

He is finally getting the right people to be part of his team than the crap given to him by Air Consult and Khazanah.

Boeing Dreamliners, not dreamers

Cuma dia tidak bising-bising. Thus many ideal minds in MAS begin to make all sort of nonsense claims, and speculations.



There is one group of former MAS wannabees trying to oust him via Wee Choo Keong and is using a MAS blog. At one time, these wannabees in which one is a former MAS LAME boasted to this blogger that they are going to takeover MAS.

They claimed they have been given words by a certain person and they will put as Chairman the former Managing Director Tan Aziz Abdul Rahman as Chairman.

The problem with this people is they do not have the capacity and are simpletons that do not exude confidence. They think by talking about management concepts and knowing a bit of day-to-day operations they are there. This people are too gung ho despite their lack of knowledge and experiance in other areas than their specific expertise in aviation.

Not to mention their perasan attitude from their comments and claims in on the socio-political game which they hardly know beyond Politics 101 for dummies.  

These people are dreamers and are still dreaming. Hope Wee Choo Keong is not caught in their weaving.

And the talk of AJ meeting Anwar Ibrahim after his release from prison does not have much basis. His close friend, which is our long time friend, said he is apolitical and hate the high level game of pampering to politicians and power-at-be.

He is a manager of businesses that love the nitty gritty of planning, day-to-day operations and problems solving. We've not even wrote of his personal profile, which he prefers not to be known, that will not lend any credibiity to any claim of AJ's political leaning.

Back to Lion Air foray into Malaysia. Khazanah's lack of foresight could be NADI's gain.

When the MAS-Air Asia collaboration merger failed and Tony had to boast of his Jakarta sojourn to cover face, a former doyen of Malaysian aviation spoke to us of the strategic value and mutual benefit of bringing Indonesian Lion Air to Kuala Lumpur.

However this can't be spoken to anyone. It's his intellectual property and he may have plans from it.

Now that NADI and Lion Air is going to establish a Malaysian-Indonesian partnership in this hybrid budget airlines, there is God in heaven to hear out the prayers of the suppressed budget air travelers. FInally someone will come in to teach big bad Tony a lesson in humanity and humility.

The joint venture airline will be called Malindo Airline and the Prime Minister will launch it.That is an acknowledgement of the new Airline initiative.

Apart from Rocky Bru's view here that the new airline will immediately promote healthy competition and strengthen Indonesia-Malaysian ties, it will strategically be beneficial to many parties, including Malaysian Airlines, Malaysia Airports, and basically the whole local aviation industry.

With Lion Air's entry into Malaysia, Tony's threat on Malaysia Airport can be laughed off. MAHB has given  loud and clear message to this unpatriotic Tony that he is replaceable and damn well is welcome to leave Malaysia.

What will Azman Mokhtar do at Tony's behest with Tan Sri Bashir Ahmad extenstion is only for 1 year? 

This venture should be more beneficial to the country than what Airasia had brought to Malaysia all these years. Surely there is many more to expect from where it came from.  

Unlike the zero sum game of Air Asia grabbing on MAS routes through unsavory and strong arm tactics, this is a more win-win in helping create of jobs, boost the local aviation business, and beneficial to Lion Air and Indonesia/(n) too.

But we can't tell.

Hope the industry players could figure it out and not miss this opportunity. Better still, bury the conniving Air Asia.