Fernandes questions objectivity of Transport Ministry

AirAsia Group CEO accuses Transport Ministry of lacking objectivity in its decisions since two of its own sit as regulators on the board of MAHB.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Transport Ministry cannot be objective when making decisions regarding AirAsia simply because two of its own sit as regulators on the board of Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB), said the low-cost carrier’s Group Chief Executive Officer Tony Fernandes today.

Speaking to reporters, Fernandes accused the Transport Ministry of making “crazy decisions” and cited both the recent directive to AirAsia to relocate from Terminal 2 of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport to Terminal 1 and their previous directive to them to relocate to Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA 2) from the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT).

He questioned why the Transport Ministry had two regulators on the board of MAHB, and asked, “How can the regulator sit on the board? Khazanah’s code of conduct is very clear, that a regulator cannot sit on the board.”

He said this jeopardised their ability to make objective decisions and added, “…that is why mistakes are being made”.

They (the regulators) should be independent and hear both sides of the story, and make a decision that is best for the country.”

Fernandes also doubted the credibility of MAHB and cited the past issues at KLIA2 such as its three-year delay in completion and the doubling of its construction costs, and added, “Surely their credibility is lower than AirAsia’s.”

However, Fernandes said the low-cost carrier still wanted to work with the government to improve the tourism industry similar to how they had been working with the governments of neighbouring countries.

“Every country in Asean is listening to AirAsia and working with us to create jobs,” he said.

“We have the Indonesian government reducing airport charges and engaging AirAsia to see how we can develop traffic,” he said. “In fact, the Singaporean authorities had worked with us to build Terminal 4.”

“Why is Malaysian Airports (MAHB) not engaging us? We don’t want to fight, we want the country to win and we want to create jobs,” he said.