After Utusan, CUEPACS joins AirAsia boycott call

Azran had criticised the racial tone of Utusan’s front page headline, “Apa lagi Cina mahu?”. — File picKUALA LUMPUR, May 22 ― Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia reported today a civil servants union and two other groups joining its boycott of AirAsia and sister airline AirAsia X, after the latter firm’s chief executive condemned the newspaper for its racially provocative headline targeting the Chinese following the May 5 polls.

The Malay broadsheet cited the Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (Cuepacs) in a front-page report urging all civil workers to avoid the budget airlines and to instead fly aboard national carrier Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and its sister company, Firefly, for the upcoming two-week school holidays.

“The power of 1.4 million civil servants can give an impact on AirAsia, so I ask all civil servants to prove this especially in the school holidays,” Cuepacs president Datuk Omar Osman was quoted saying, claiming he had received numerous complaints from several consumer groups dissatisfied with AirAsia’s service.

Several other groups were also cited giving similar reasons backing their call to make AirAsia the airline of last resort, including the Executive Officers Union (KEPAK) and the Malaysian Consumers Potection and Welfare Board (LPKPM), the paper reported.

In an apparent attempt to back up their claims of dissatisfactory service, Utusan also reported on its front page a man complaining that the airline had refused to fly back his mother’s corpse from Jogjakarta to Kuala Lumpur even though she had previously purchased a ticket aboard AirAsia ― despite the carrier not being licensed to do so.

The call to boycott AirAsia was mooted by Utusan’s Awang Selamat — the nom-de-plume for the paper’s collective editorial voice — in its column on May 19 in retaliation for criticism from AirAsia X’s chief executive, Azran Osman Rani, over the latter’s Twitter account for what he reportedly saw as a racial instigation in the aftermath of the May 5 polls.

In response, the paper had published daily views from Perkasa leaders, the Muslim Consumers Society of Malaysia and pro-Umno activists who slammed Azran, branding him “arrogant” and a Malay who had  forgotten his roots.

Perkasa’s acting president Datuk Abdul Rahman Bakar who had rallied to the paper’s defence blasted Azran, saying the latter could not have climbed up to his present position without the “Malay power fought for by Utusan Malaysia”.