Tony Fernandes is the founder of Tune Air Sdn Bhd. His full name is Anthony Francis Fernandes. He was born in Kuala Lumpur on 30 April 1964. He was born in a family of mixed Portuguese Goa (India) and Portuguese Malacca. His father named Dr. Stephen Edward Fernandes and his mother named Ena Dorothy Fernandez. When he still young, he follow his mother to sell Tupperware at Tupperware parties. He has received education at The Alice Smith School in Kuala Lumpur. In 1977 when he at age 12 he studied at Epsom College which is boarding school in England until year of 1983. After that, he further his studies at London School of Economics and finally successfully completed his studied with a degree in accounting.
Before he becomes an entrepreneur, he was an auditor at Virgin Atlantic, then in 1987 to 1989 he becoming the financial controller for Richard Branson’s Virgin Records in London. Tony Fernandes also was a former executive at Warmer Music Malaysia. From 1992 to 2001, he was regional vice president of Southeast Asia for Warner Music Group. When Time Warner Inc., announced to merge their company with American Online Inc., Fernandes has decided to leave the company to pursue his dream which is to set up an Asia’s first low cost airline.
In 2001, Tony Fernandes has become one of the entrepreneur who introduced the first budget no-frills airline, AirAsia in Malaysia with the tagline “Now everyone can fly”. Based on the advised given by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad which is former of Prime Minister of Malaysia, Fernandes had purchased existing airline instead that he starting from scratch. After received an advised from Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Tony make decision by bought Air Asia from Malaysia government-owned company in September 2001. Even though that company is heavily indebted, he are willing to mortgage his home and used his personal saving to buy Air Asia.
One of the entrepreneur trait is self-confident. Tony Fernandes was to mortgage his home and used his personal saving to buy Air Asia. Even though he knew that the company is heavily indebted, he still make decision to buy that company after listen an advice that give from Tun Dr. Mahathir to buy an existing airline instead he starting from beginning. By mortgage his home and used his personal saving, he finally able to get the company which are comprising two Boeing 737-300 jet aircraft and debts of US$11million (RM 40 million). His action causing people to say that it is not worthwhile actions and they also predict that the company will go bankrupt. However, after one year he take over the company, he managed to repay all the debt of AirAsia and his business is expand rapidly. In less than 3 years, AirAsia are able to increase of two Boeing 737-300 to 30 and now AirAsia manage to operate more than 100 domestic and international flight every day.
Next of the entrepreneur traits is high initiative level. This traits we can see on Tony Fernandes when he decides to introduced the first budget no-frills airlines in Malaysia with the tagline “Now everyone can fly”. He the first one that introduced the flight with low fares to all over the world. Air Asia successful to made a name all over the world because Tony Fernandes adopt effective cost management system. Tony Fernandes is very strict when it comes to cost management because he want to make sure that they are able to provide budget airline services to the people. Besides that, other cost such as operating costs and daily costs also need to be managed at a lower cost as well. Salary of pilot is the one of the cost that are very highest that must be spent by the airlines. But Air Asia managed to pay pilot’s salary with low rates compared to other competitor airlines. This is because, Air Asia is the one that offer employment opportunities to the pilot that are have been fired by others airlines. Even though the remuneration package are not attractive, the pilots need to accept the salary that are offer to them since there are desperate to find a work.
Next of the entrepreneur trait is problem solving. Tony Fernandes knows how to solve the problem that occur in his company. One of the problem that occur in this company is when their always received a complaint from customers about their services. Most of the complaint were about flight delay that cause dissatisfaction of passengers who are using AirAsia. To resolve the problem, AirAsia already take step to improve the quality of their services and reduce the flight delays. Besides that, on the recent year, has been a misunderstanding between one of the cabin crew and passenger. This problem arise when one of the passenger demand apologised to a disabled child from the cabin crew her mother complained of being insulted. However, the cabin crew only offer help after seeing a child is not feeling well, but her mother misunderstood the question that ask by cabin crew. This issue have make people angry and began to collect names for a petition to forced Skytrax to drop AirAsia nomination because they failed to defend the right of his crew. To resolve the issue, Tony Fernandes, he travelled to Hatyai, Thailand to meet cabin crew’s parent to apologize. Tony also issued a statement expressing regret and acknowledges their responsibility and assured this problem would not occur again.
Besides, Tony Fernandes also known as someone that very persuasive because in AirAsia, their management philosophy is that they want people to pursue their passion and he himself proved that everyone can pursue their dreams and passion. He said that when he was 14 years-old, he already know what he wanted which is an airlines, football club and F1 team and now he already achieved all three things that he dreams. He have an airline which is AirAsia, he own a football club which is Queens Park Ranger Football Club and F1 team which is Caterham F1.
The last entrepreneur trait is efficiency oriented. When Tony Fernandes and Dato Kamarudin started the AirAsia airline, he came with a different management philosophy. He wanted to build a family company, a company where other people would be treated as a family. He makes AirAsia different than the traditional hierarchal Asian population. AirAsia is a company that have no hierarchy and people can approach their boss or whoever they wanted. Tony Fernandes makes AirAsia workspace is an open plan workspace where nobody has rooms so that the workers can walk up to him anytime they wanted. Besides, he believed that AirAsia do not need to go through layers of bureaucracy. He make sure that everybody has his contact number so people from errand boys to the senior management will contact him directly when have problems so that the problems can solved very quickly.
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