It is indeed amusing the way people are lining up to criticise AirAsia. Hopefully this is not indicative of the 'tall poppy' syndrome prevalent in Australia where those who are successful are deemed to be too big for their boots and have to be cut down to size by negative comments, carping and criticism.

And, of course, this being Malaysia, there could be a subtle tinge of racism in the way some people are commenting on AirAsia. After all, here is a Indian Malaysian who had the guts to take over a bankrupt airline and nurse it back to profitability, and then take it public, all without a single sen of government assistance, and in the face of open competition from our own national airline.

In the US, this guy would be applauded as an example of someone who made good according to free market tenets, and who made the big bucks while providing a service to the travelling public. Whereas in Malaysia, people delight in pulling down the successful entrepreneurs to the lowest common denominator.

As someone who has flown on some of the best known budget airlines (or low-cost carriers) such as Southwest, Virgin Blue, EasyJet, RyanAir, Jet Airways and Air Sahara, there is nothing that AirAsia has to apologise for.

Every airline has operational problems - even the five-star airlines such as Cathay Pacific and SIA (talk to airline staff and you will learn of mistakes and snafus that have never made it into the newspapers). It would be Utopian to expect AirAsia to be any different from its more 'illustrious' counterparts in the industry.

It is also not true that AirAsia has taken over 'all the most profitable routes in Malaysia' as one letter writer has claimed. For starters, it has been locked out of the highly lucrative Singapore-KL sector by an outdated air services agreement between Singapore and Malaysia whereby SIA and Malaysia Airlines dominate the sector, with a token presence by the likes of Japan Airlines and Air India.

Second, it competes against MAS on the domestic sectors it flies in Malaysia. MAS has claimed that it is consistently losing money on its domestic operations, the same operations where AirAsia is making a profit.

It is funny that the AirAsia critics out there don't ask why MAS is losing money, while AirAsia is profitable on pretty much the same domestic route network. But that would be harder to do compared to the easy way of criticising AirAsia's performance and operational standards.

A free market has alternative choices for consumers. If the Malaysian domestic market is a free market, then consumers have plenty of choices (apart, of course, from the 'national car/s'). It comes down to a question of convenience and how much they are prepared to pay to get from point A to point B.

Strange how the critics lose sight of something so basic. Or, maybe, they have it in for Fernandes, no matter what he does. The 'tall poppy' syndrome, anyone?