There is something definitely wrong in the way Malaysians are debating about the predicament of the national carrier, MAS vis-a-vis the role played by AirAsia. There is complete absence of objectivity here. Can’t we show a bit of patriotism? Where is the sense of fair play?
Are we going to relish the demise of our very own national airline which will throw thousands of our own compatriots onto the scrapheap? Even the argument put forward by former MAS boss Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman fails to make an impression. Surely MAS problems are not caused by mismanagement alone.
And are we witnessing a scenario where AirAsia has become a ‘sacred cow’ so much so that stories about it in certain newspapers have become what is called an ‘advertorial’ complete with its logo in the middle of the story. Whereas in malaysiakini there are constant letters of complaints about AirAsia’s service.
And now two clear proofs have emerged to prove that low cost carriers (LCC) do affect the business of the scheduled airlines unless the scheduled carrier is a fully international airline like Singapore Airlines. Some days ago, the president of the Philippines Airlines (PAL), Jaime Bautista, said that due to intrusion of AirAsia into the Kuala Lumpur-Manila sector, beginning Feb 15, PAL would stop flying into Kuala Lumpur. And due to failure to compete with much bigger Middle Eastern airlines, PAL also has decided to stop flying into Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
The irony is that PAL, unlike MAS, could actually make money purely on the huge number of Filipino workers in the Middle East and Malaysia. And then, British Airways announced the setting up of BA Connect, its new LCC to compete with Ryanair and EasyJet for Europe-wide destinations. According to BA, its LCC would be better than Ryanair and EasyJet because it would also cater for business travellers. BA had, in fact, set up an LCC called ‘Go’ a few years ago but decided to sell it to EasyJet which then killed it off.
AirAsia and its supporters have said that it has nothing to do with PAL’s problems because AirAsia only flies to the Clark Air Base outside Manila, not into Manila airport itself.
Hello, Clark Air Base airport is still not far from Manila and in fact, to some Filipino going home for holidays, Clark is closer to their homes.
Ryanair and EasyJet also fly to neighbouring airports outside Paris, Brussels, etc in Europe, but passengers would not mind a short bus or train ride to their destinations because the LCC fares are still much cheaper. It would be interesting to investigate those who fly AirAsia to Langkawi. Their final destinations could be Alor Setar or Perlis.
To overcome its financial predicament, MAS could either ask the government to force AirAsia to ‘codeshare’ domestic and regional destinations or appoint a very aggressive person to set up its own LCC and provide similar fares and services like AirAsia.
This shouldn’t be too difficult. Passengers are only looking for efficient check-in, punctuality, fast baggage claims and no lost baggage. Once on board they are quite happy to be left alone to read newspapers or catch up with office work or (if there are facilities) to call their loved ones.
After all, an LCC flight takes no more than three hours.
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NEWS
