SGDU6093

QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN EDUCATION

DR. KHALIZA SAIDIN

Suphak Froom Mazlinda Abu Bakar Nazzir Hussain Bin Mydeen

Six-year olds can have stupid ambitions. At least that is what a no-nonsense father thought when his son announced one day that he will own an airline when he grows up. If you make it past the doorman of Hilton Hotel, I will be happy, the physician father had said. Today, the very man in question owns AirAsia. This rock star of the ASEAN skies is Tony Fernandes.

Tan Sri Anthony Francis "Tony" Fernandes, CBE (born 30 April 1964) is a Malaysian entrepreneur. He is the founder of Tune Air Sdn. Bhd., who introduced the first budget no-frills airline, AirAsia, to Malaysians with the tagline "Now everyone can fly". Fernandes managed to turn AirAsia, a failing government-linked commercial airline, into a highly successful budget airline public-listed company. He has since founded the Tune Group of companies. He was also instrumental in lobbying the then-Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in mid-2003, to propose the idea of open skies agreements with neighbouringThailand, Indonesia, and Singapore. As a result, these nations have granted landing rights to AirAsia and other discount carriers. As of February 2013, Forbes Asia valued Fernandes' net worth at $625 million, ranking him at number 21 on the Forbes list of Malaysia's Richest.

It was through Datuk Pahamin A. Rejab, that Fernandes came to meet with then Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in October 2001. Instead of starting from scratch, Mahathir advised Fernandes to buy an existing airline instead. AirAsia, the heavily-indebted subsidiary of DRB-Hicom, was quickly losing money. Fernandes mortgaged his home and used his personal savings to acquire the company, comprising two ageing Boeing 737-300 jets (9M-AAA and 9M-AAB) and US$11 million (RM40 million) worth of debts, for one ringgit (about 26 US cents), and transformed it into an industry player. One year after his takeover, AirAsia had broken even and cleared all its debts. Its initial public offering (IPO) in November 2004 was oversubscribed by 130 per cent.

Fernandes first envisioned cheap flights across Asia as a young boy. Being at boarding school in Epsom in southern England far from his childhood home in Malaysia meant that half-term visits were out of the question. The biggest blow was when his dear mother passed away and he could not afford the fees to fly back. The disappointment of that event eventually fueled his ambition to make flying affordable and the idea of AirAsia was born.

Tony adopts a walk around management style. If you sit up in your ivory tower and just look at financial reports, youre going to make some big mistakes. For a few days every month he works on the ground or in the cabin crew. He says hes learned a lot from working on the airline himself.

When

we moved from the 737 to the Airbus, the Airbus is slightly higher off the ground and my guys said we need belt loaders. It would have cost us about a million US dollars. We used to just put the bags manually into the cargo hold on a 737.So he turned the idea down. But on his next stint working alongside staff, he says he almost broke his back loading the plane.

I said Ron, youre right, well get belt loaders I made the decision instantaneously. He says that without the experience, I could have made a decision a very wrong decision that damaged a lot of people and destroyed the morale of the organization at that level. Fernandes says that to him employees come number one, customers come number two. If you have a happy workforce theyll look after your customers anyway. You can have all the money you want in the world and you can have all the brilliant ideas but if you dont have the people, forget it. he said.

His motto is simple Take care of your peopIe and your people will take care of business and make all the money you need. All it takes is for one person to tentatively walk up to the AirAsia chief executive and ask for a photograph. He adjusts his trademark red cap, shakes the passengers hand, puts his arm around him and smiles widely with a thumbs-up as the camera clicks. He then turns to the passenger and says: Thank you for flying with us.

Thank you kindly Suphak Froom Mazlinda Abu Bakar Nazzir Hussain Bin Mydeen