“Tan Sri Tony Fernandes has denied that AirAsia benefited from the RM249 mil in Government subsidies paid to Fly Asian Xpress (FAX) for rural air service operations four years ago. Fernandes said that although the shareholders of FAX were similar to AirAsia, they ended up losing almost RM5 mil of shareholder capital owing to the wind-up costs of FAX.” Read HERE for full report. Was the report the truth of the situation or another spin by Tan Sri Tony Fernandes?
Below were the comments from a reader of yours truly’s Blog. The views expressed were that of the reader “OLD Man’ on 7-11-2011.
Tony, Tony, Tony, I wish you would stop all the lying and twisting the facts. Your recent statement that AK did ot benefit from FAX subsidies is an insult to the intelligence of many. Your mother is turning in her grave with all the lies you are spewing out.
Lets study the facts:
1. RAS was awarded to AK to operate.
2. AK sub-contracts it to FAX making FAX the sole operator of RAS
3. The material shareholders of FAX are the same as AK.
4. FAX charges AK for operating RAS with a overrider to cover its other “expenses” including such above board items as financial charges etc.
5. AK claims from the Government subsidies to cover the losses incurred by FAX also with a “little” on top to cover AK administratives and other costs.
6. So in effect, neither AK nor FAX sufferred any losses for operating RAS because the Government undewrites the losses.
7. When MASWings operates RAS, MASWings only receives subsidies from the government to cover their operating losses i.e.total cost less revenue and other expenses that will not be born by the Government.
8. MASWings operates RAS with newer equipment, at far superior service, with more frequencies and destinations. These are all at a higher cost now.
9. The subsidies received by MASWings is only HALF of the amount you received.
From the above, one can only conclude that the “charges” over and above the base costs makes up at least half of the amount claimed.
So one can also conclude that MASWings is more competent than FAX to operate RAS.
You are now spinning that AK did not benefit from the subsidies and it was FAX. We are playing with semantics here.
Froms the facts above, one can also conclude that some of the residual “losses” incurred as a result of winding down by FAX is nothing more than the cost of you folly. ifor one do not believe that you dis not factor this in your claims to the Government.
I would like to remind you that during the time you were pitching for RAS, you declared so proudly that AK can operate RAS at a better service profitably because your low cost model fits it well. You hoodwink the states promises into backing your demand for RAS. In the first place it was AK how come it became FAX, water under the bridge of course.
Lets face facts, it was never your intention to operate RAS in the first place. You went for it as a means of getting an AOC. Well getting the ever so precious AOC is not a benefit, what is?
Having 9,000 staff who carried 130M pax and won numerous awards does not make you a saint. It has no relevance to the subject at hand i.e. the MYR249M subsidies received by FAX to cover losses.
You, I and many knows that passing the AG’s Office audit is by no means a measure of the rightiousness of raw deal everyone else got out of this.
I would like to also remind you of how you also once proudly declared that the Government was being unfair to you and that MAS thrives on Government protection and subsidies.
You are a nothing more than an unscroupulous greedy
Iiar.Note:
What Tan Sri Tony Fernandes should also clarify:
During Fly Asian Express Sdn Bhd (FAX) operations of Rural Air Services (RAS), how FAX cannibalised an aircraft for spare parts, the 6 were grounded due to un-airworthiness?
The poor RAS provided by FAX;
Why was there any necessity for AirAsia Bhd to sub-contract the RAS to FAX?
Why FAX had to dump RAS back to MAS?
Why soon after dumping RAS to MAS FAX had to change its name to AirAsia X Sdn Bhd?
How he and/or Air Asia X Sdn Bhd persuaded Badawi’s Administration to grant Air Asia X Sdn Bhd the Air Operation Certificate (AOC) when it was just incorporated for only 2 months?
Having charted bad poor records under RAS, how he and/or AirAsia X Sdn Bhd “persuaded” the Badawi’s Administration to keep its AOC when it should have been withdrawn because of such bad track record?
Thereafter, how he and/or AirAsia X Sdn Bhd was awarded with 32 international routes like London, Paris, Gold Coast, Melbourne and etc by the Badawi’s Administration and to operate 13 routes which routes were in competition with MAS?
Last but not least, how much AirAsia Bhd or AirAsia X Sdn Bhd actually charged and received from the Badawi’s Administration, which Tan Sri Tony Fernandes has been quoted to have said that “AirAsia received little help from Badawi’s Administration?
Read HERE, HERE for related article.
