Tony Fernandes, CEO and figure head of the AirAsia Group hopes to consolidate management structure of his sprawling airline empire to better serve its interests as the ASEAN open skies agreement comes into effect.
He has been ‘pushing the proposal’ of 100% ownership of each of its regional units, in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, along with its main Malaysia business.
"The response so far has been quite good. It is our goal to create one holding company eventually. The ASEAN open skies, which had been reported previously, is finally a reality, as Laos was the last to sign. This is an exciting development for us," Fernandes said.
"So the dream of having one Asean airline with one holding company owning Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines is now possible and we must treat Asean as one place."
Current ownership regulations in the various countries are cumbersome and Fernandes is looking at the example of Europe as an example of a more streamlined system of ownership which he hopes ASEAN will one day adopt.
"This has always been my plan to consolidate, but we have to talk to many different authorities to do so. There is no timeframe yet If you compare us with EasyJet or Ryanair, they don’t have an EasyJet Poland, etc. They just have an entity. Because of ownership rules, we have to have the kind of structure that we have today," he added.
