AirAsia: The Story So Far

A short story on how the airline started and contributing to Malaysia as a whole. And a great news for AirAsia, at the SKYTRAX World Airline Awards ceremony held in Hamburg, Germany on 1st April 2009, AirAsia was announced as the best global low cost carrier.

The airline was established in 1993 and started operations on 18 November 1996. It was originally founded by a government-owned conglomerate DRB-Hicom. On December 2, 2001, the heavily-indebted airline was purchased by former Time Warner executive Tony Fernandes's company Tune Air Sdn Bhd for the token sum of one ringgit. Fernandes proceeded to engineer a remarkable turnaround, turning a profit in 2002 and launching new routes from its hub in Kuala Lumpur International Airport at breakneck speed, undercutting former monopoly operator Malaysia Airlines with promotional fares as low as RM1.
The leading low fare airline in the Asia - AirAsia has been expanding rapidly since 2001, to become an award winning and the largest low cost carrier in Asia. With a fleet of 72 aircrafts, AirAsia flies to over 61 domestic and international destinations with 108 routes, and operates over 400 flights daily from hubs located in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. To date, AirAsia has flown over 55 million guests across the region and continues to spread its wings to create more extensive route network through its associate companies, Thai AirAsia and Indonesia AirAsia. AirAsia believes in the no-frills, hassle-free, low fare business concept and feels that keeping costs low requires high efficiency in every part of the business. Efficiency creates savings which are then passed on to guests so that affordable air travel can become a reality. Through the philosophy of ‘Now Everyone Can Fly’, AirAsia has sparked a revolution in air travel with more and more people around the region choosing AirAsia as their preferred choice of transport. As AirAsia continuously strives to promote air travel, they also seek to create excitement amongst the guests with range of innovative and personalized service.

This is Air Asia's TV Commercial.

Southwest flight attendant makes a performance of job

Here's a great video of a charismatic flight attendant rapping to passengers and making their day.

Airbus A380 for Emirates

The Blue Angels

The Blue Angels’ mission is to enhance Navy and Marine Corps recruiting efforts and to represent the naval service to the United States, its elected leadership and foreign nations. The Blue Angels serve as positive role models and goodwill ambassadors for the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps.
A Blue Angels flight demonstration exhibits choreographed refinements of skills possessed by all naval aviators. It includes the graceful aerobatic maneuvers of the four-plane Diamond Formation, in concert with the fast-paced, high-performance maneuvers of its two Solo Pilots. Finally, the team illustrates the pinnacle of precision flying, performing maneuvers locked as a unit in the renowned, six-jet Delta Formation.
The team is stationed at Forrest Sherman Field, Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, during the show season. However, the squadron spends January through March training pilots and new team members at Naval Air Facility El Centro, California. I was able to witness this spectacular team at Kansas City Airshow.

Fat Albert Airlines
An all-Marine Corps crew of three officers and five enlisted personnel operate the Lockheed-Martin C-130T Hercules, affectionately known as Fat Albert Airlines. Fat Albert joined the team in 1970 and flies more than 140,000 miles each season. It carries more than 40 maintenance and support personnel, their gear and enough spare parts and communication equipment to complete a successful air show.Fat Albert cruises at a speed of more than 320 knots (approximately 360 miles per hour) at 27,000 feet. Four Allison turboprop engines, which produce more than 16,000 shaft-horsepower, provide Fat Albert Airlines with the power to land and depart on runways as short as 2,500 feet.At select show sites, Fat Albert demonstrates its jet-assisted takeoff (JATO) capability. Eight solid-fuel rocket bottles, four on each side, attached near the rear paratrooper doors thrust the Hercules skyward. Fired simultaneously, the JATO bottles allow the mammoth transport aircraft to takeoff within 1,500 feet, climb at a 45-degree angle, and propel it to an altitude of 1,000 feet in approximately 15 seconds. Getting Fat Albert airborne in minimal time and distance simulates conditions in hostile environments or on short, unprepared runways

visit blue angels website at http://www.blueangels.navy.mil/

Singapore Airlines A380 Interior Cabin Video

Virgin Atlantic 25 Anniversary

It seems that Virgin Atlantic's New Year's resolution is to re-establish itself as the glamorous airline with the red hot cabin crew.
From the ad, it seems to hark back to a bygone age when air travel was deemed sexy and glamorous, rather than the delay-prone, overcrowded means of getting from A to B that it has become today.
The brick-sized 1980s mobile phone in the ad is amusing - did people really did used to think they looked anything other than ridiculous with such clunky, oversized pieces of plastic clamped to their ears?
But will the ad have its desired effect? Will a bunch of attractive women in red stilettoes encourage people to forget their money worries and fly Virgin in these difficult economic times? Hopefully........

KL's airport u-turn is for the best

Kuala Lumpur has decided to reject the RM1.6 billion low-cost carrier terminal (LCCT) project in Labu in Negeri Sembilan proposed by Sime Darby and Air Asia.
This, after the Cabinet agreed two weeks ago to give the nod to the duo to go ahead with the plan. But it appears that opposition from former premier Mahathir Mohammad, mainly, and some socia-political blogs, stayed the government's hand.
Be that as it may, the government gave at least one reason for its about-turn that is probably valid. It said it was concerned that Air Asia might not be able to raise the necessary funding for the project. Given the grim economic climate before is, that could very well be true.
In addition, Air Asia officials had said that any loan for the project would not be on its balance sheets but on the books of the private company that would be set up to handle the project. One doubts that any bank would rush in to funding a project not backed by the financial heft of Sime Darby or Air Asia.
Tony Fernandes, the maverick founder of Asia's most successful budget carrier, may actually have got what he wanted. By upping the ante and audaciously proposing Labu, and lobbying for it through numerous press interview, he got Malaysia Airport Holdings (MAHB) to the bargaining table.
The reason:the government said MAHB will now build the new LCCT within the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, or KLIA which MAHB manages, but in "close consultation" with Air Asia. "The company's input on the building of the new terminal will have to be taken into consideration," said the New Straits Times, citing a source familiar with the proceedings.
Most people concede that a new LCCT is required. Mr Fernandes has grown his airline at breakneck proportions. From 200,000 passengers in 2003 when he started out, Air Asia ferried close to 12 million passengers last year and expects to top 15 million passengers by the end of this year. By 2013, he estimates that the LCCT will play host to 25 million passengers.
That MAHB hasn't been the most efficient airport manager around also cannot be denied. The current LCCT is horrendously crowded, its toilets are appalling, and its baggage handling notorious.
In addition, one cannot help but wonder why MAHB would be quarrelling with a client that provides it with more than half its revenue. One would think it would be thinking of new ways to serve it better!
But Labu cannot have been the answer. The greatest misgiving over the location was that it would have created two airports - with separate runways and control towers - within eight kilometres of each other.
Mr Fernandes insists it is perfectly safe but he is a businessman and not an aviation expert. Dr Mahathir also has a point when he says there must be a reason why there are no two airports in the world that are that close together. Eight kilometres for a jet coming down to land at over 300 kilometres an hour is but a heartbeat.
Perhaps the government's decision last Friday is for the best. MAHB, with its government backing, can surely raise the funding. But it must build a no-frills airport within budget without extraneous wastage with service fees that are appropriate for its biggest client for whom cost is everything.
And the open bickering should cease. The public is tired of it.