Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - Tony Fernandes: How He Runs the World's Best Low-cost Airline

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

In this special episode of Endgame, Gita Wirjawan welcomes back his dear friend, Tony Fernandes, for an in-person conversation after their first online discussion. Tony, the iconic CEO of Capital A (formerly known as AirAsia Group), shares his incredible rebound story after COVID-19, driven by a transparent and productive culture that has made AirAsia the world's best low-cost airline. With his signature optimism, Tony discusses the future of Southeast Asia's tourism and reveals the exciting potential of the AirAsia SuperApp. Don’t miss this heartfelt and inspiring reunion! #Endgame #GitaWirjawan #TonyFernandes ------------------ Tony Fernandes' first appearance at Endgame: Bos AirAsia: We Are the Real ASEAN SuperApp Other episodes you might also like: How She Leads Half A Million Employee - Jessica Tan “There’s More to Life than Finance and Economics" - Azman Mokhtar Singapore's Former Foreign Minister: The Next Flashpoint - George Yeo ------------------ Explore and discuss this episode further: https://endgame.id/ ------------------ Be our collaborator and partner: https://sgpp.me/contactus ------------------ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Intro 00:46 - Restarting is harder than starting 07:41 - "Indonesia can easily have 150 million (tourists)" 12:40 - Building the ASEAN lane 17:16 - Know your business not just from your CEO office 27:04 - Four secrets of AirAsia 39:29 - “It’s sometimes hard to be a politician to be fair" 43:17 - Why Tony disrupts the ride-hailing industry? 46:27 - How to build a corporate culture 51:46 - Get your act together before promoting

Ladies and gentlemen, Tony Fernandez. I'll start off with how you have gone through the last three to four years, which I know would have been very difficult for you and all the other airliners. Imagine this situation where you have 21,000 staff, 210 aircraft, and one day and carrying 90 million people in 2019 aircraft. We were the fourth largest airline in Asia. And then suddenly it comes to a complete stop. You know, going to my office, which looks like to KLI2, which is where we operate. And you don't see a single person. I used to have a television kind of showing where all our planes are and other airlines as well.

And there wasn't a single yellow plane in the sky. or on TV. It was surreal. It was like a Will Smith movie. Only it wasn't a movie. And there was no Gita's voice in the back reassuring you that all will be calm, you know, or corn, you know, these politicians who didn't finish becoming politicians. And kind of stopped in COVID. And so, Yeah, it was a, you know, a time that you would never have imagined, right? I went through SARS. I've been through bird flu. We've had terrorism. We've had all kinds of things. But COVID was something else. I used to say my speeches, I've been through everything. Nothing will ever challenge me. And then I met Kenny Kim and Eggman.

But no, no. So I get there, man. Then COVID came along, right? And so it's, you know, it's, it was something else. I don't think any industry went through as much pain as the airline. And there are many types of airlines, right? The government-known airlines. Those airlines were okay because governments helped them.

And then there's our kind of airlines where no one helped us. Right. So it was very tough. And you can't put it into words what we went through, but we survived. And, you know, it's almost, it's easier to start the airline 21 years ago with two planes coming from the music business. You know, you imagine a situation, right? I used to sell Deng Dut music. I was the king of Deng Dut, right?

Yeah. I still end the king of Deng Deng Dut, actually. and selling Madonna and stuff and suddenly you have an idea of starting an airline you buy an airline from a state-owned company or a quasi-state-owned company for 25 cents

and you signed the deal three days before 9-11 and then 9-11 happens but then you build this amazing fairy tale and you know I was very proud today that many well-to-do people, including Tan Sri Nazarazah, flew to this conference on Eurasia.

Way to go. You know, big day for me. He never flew on Eurasia, right? Because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and would always fly full service airlines. And then one day I received a phone call and I knew he went, hey, bro. I said, oh, is that me a cancel their flight? And he went, yes, and I put the phone down. I eventually led him on to our flight.

But no, yeah, I mean, going back to more serious things, you know, starting the airline was hard. We all came with the music business. We had no experience. But we built something, but restarting an airline was much, much harder. much, much harder. Was there, was there anything that you could have done differently to survive? Um, well, fine, cora, I think maybe. No, no, no.

You would have been worse off, man. No, I mean, I don't think anything can prepare you for, for COVID, right? I mean, you go from a revenue of, you know, five billion dollars to zero. I mean, you can't have enough cash. it is really remarkable. One, I'm still alive and breathing in my shorts. Just to let you know, it's no disrespect to anyone. My wife sent my only trousers for dry cleaning this morning.

And I thought maybe the conference would end quicker so we could go straight to the golf course. So I'm very efficient, low-cost airline here. So there we go. So what was I talking about? Anything, man. Yeah. All right. But let me ask you, you know, when you got on. Maybe just give a perspective, right?

So people don't understand this. You know, we had 210 planes on the ground. In the history of aviation, no plane has been on the ground for that long. And so when COVID finally ended, it's ended. So you don't need to wear a mask anymore. So, so when it finally ended, Sorry, I'm the humor section of this, having heard the most highly anticipated session. No, but there is content there.

To put back into operation, 210 planes is an amazing feat for my engineers, who are the real heroes in this aspect. And, you know, we haven't put all 210 back. We have 180 and another, you know, 30-odd more to go. go. By end of September, we will have all 210 planes. Now, we've done this out of, out of all our cash flow. And what I'm most proud about is, apart from those planes being put back, is, you know, we had to let go of a lot of staff during this period and cut salaries and do all these kind of things to survive, which was very painful for me. I've had two really painful experiences in my life. One is I lost an aircraft in Indonesia QZ8501 and no one prepares you for that kind of thing.

Second was COVID having to let go of staff who did nothing wrong, who had served me for 20 odd years and been an incredible group of people. You know, we're the only airline of our size that hasn't had a single union. We never had one day of industrial action and to let go of those people were incredibly painful. But all of them are back now. Every single one, no one left us, and all of them are back on full page. That's a big step for me. And the next big step will be when the 210th plaintiffs come back. And in between, Nazirazov flu on us as well.

So, you know, we've come full circle here. Now that we're in Indonesia, now that you're back on your feet, you've got most of your fleet back, flying. You know, we've only been able to get 15 million tourists from outside, which is a mockery compared to Malaysia and Singapore at about 23 to 25 million each, compared to Thailand at about 40, pre-COVID, right? And I'm a big believer of connectivity, and you're a big believer of that. Where do you see Indonesian tourism or international tourism going?

Is it possible for us to foresee a future where we get visited by 150 million tourists from outside? Yeah, I mean, 100%. I mean, I'm a huge believer. I've pushed the president very hard on visa and rival, opening up a lot of airports. Before COVID, we were really making great progress. You know, Bandung is a fantastic example. No one flew to Bandu. absolutely no one. No Garuda. At that time, no sympathy, no animal airline, you know, lions and tigers.

And, you know, I mean, why do people name airlines after animals, right? They got birds, lions, tigers in Malaysia, we have one named after an insect. Really stupid name. It's called Firefly, right? So yeah, go back to Bandung. Serious, serious. So when I, when I started, Air Asia, you know, I didn't have Kenny or Ekman. So I just kind of said, why don't we fly to Bandung? They're like 1.5 million people. And it's got a great university. It's got great music. You know, what do we fly there? And the network guy said, because no one else does. And I said, well, they're stupid. Let's try, right? Let's try. And, you know, we had a 737 at that point. And we couldn't park actually at the terminal.

The terminal was the size of this room, actually. It was really small. And so we had to park at the Air Force Base next to Praboa's plane. And because our plane was too heavy and it had nothing to do with my weight. It was, you know, because the runway, the taxiway couldn't take it. And so I said, no, we can do it. And it became huge. We brought hundreds and thousands.

of Malaysians. So from one flight a day, we went to 32 flights a day from all over. And Bandung built a new airport, right? Because as soon as we started and were successful, every other animal airline followed, right? And including the insect. But they didn't last long. We crushed them. And so, this is a, this is a tough session, man. I know. For me, at least. I am a serious business.

I do want to do a deal with your payment gateway. So, so, you know, and now Bandugs build another airport at Katajati, right? So, you know, we started Belintung, we're big believers in Ambon, Lombot, right? I mean, the 15 million tourists, 14 and a half are in Bali, right? I mean, you have to go to Bali airport yesterday. For me, it was exciting, right? I mean, I love seeing, for you guys don't like cues. I love cues, right?

I love seeing long security cues. It's like, yes. Let those people wait. We didn't like empty airports, right? So Indonesia can easily have 150 million. But sometimes you have some policy decisions which make no sense. And you become very Indonesian, right? I think Jay kind of alluded to it in the Asian, Asian story, right?

So there's a thought, and I'm going to see the president on this, because he was the one who pushed all the opening of these airports. After COVID, someone decided that only a few airports should be international, right, which is a real step backwards. Right? Because no one wants to go to Jakarta and then catch another flight to go to Belunton or Pontiana or wherever else, right? And so slowly we've opened up more and more airports, but there's still a lot to be opened. And so the feeling in Indonesia is that more people are going out than coming in. That's absolutely not correct. You have to see Bundle for a start, right?

And that everyone was going to Malaysia or Singapore for hospital treatment. I mean, closing the international airports, I'm going to stop that. People who need hospital treatment. And I take a very different view of life, right? If someone's better than you, then build something. that's better so they won't have to go. I'm a real free marketeer. And if the competition is better than me, then I deserve to be kicked, right?

That's just life. What do you think is causing the stickiness from a policy standpoint? I think it's misinformation. I think suddenly the rupee everyone thinks everyone's going away, so the rupee is going down because all the money is outflowing. That's what the case. Indonesia is a net info. This is a big country.

This is the leader of ASEAN. stop. And it should be, it's a beautiful country, has amazing people. And, you know, it's not a country in many ways as a continent. There's a huge difference between people in Sumatra and people in Sulawesi. And so, and there's so much to see and so much to do. This should be the biggest country. There's no two ways about it. So you take the Thai policy where they are very pro and will do anything to open up tourism in anywhere. And then Indonesia. which is still trying to cope with dealing with the outside world, if I can be honest, right? And trusting the outside world.

You see that as unnecessary ultra-nationalism? 100%. 100%. But it needs people like us to go and tell the various leaders that with fact, with empirical information, done by Eggman. you know, one slide will become 250 slides. But, you know, we, where is my favorite man, Eggman? There we go.

It's transformed my life, this man. But, yeah, we'll get through. I mean, I got through before, right? Go through before. And, I mean, there's been a lot of talk about private industry driving, private industry changing, you know. And private industry has to drive. drive. It has to drive. It's painful. It's taken 21 years to get one country to allow us to own 100% of an airline. It's a poor use of capital having inefficient capital structures.

And if we go back in history, I mean, these are the kind of things that we have to deal with, which are nonsensical, right? Why did airlines not allow foreigners to own 100% of the fly carriers? Because of wars, right? In that they think that with the war, they need to control the airline to move soldiers around. I mean, that's antiquated. I mean, a long time ago, a president of Indonesia asked me when they were having another argument with Malaysia, regular occurrence. And there was talk about invading and all this kind of stuff from the press. And I said, why invade? Just send 10% of your population. You've taken over our country anyway. And so the president said to me, Tony, who will you support if Indonesia goes to

war with Malaysia. I said very easy, Papa. Air Asia, Indonesia will move the Indonesian soldiers and Air Asia Malaysia will move the Malaysian soldiers. We are truly Asian. Even in war. So I said there's no need. Just send over. I said, when you can't watch a Malaysia Indonesian badminton match in Kuala Lumpur, you feel you're in Sanayan Stadium anyway. Is there more Indonesian? there. But no, the reality is there's still a little bit of inward thinking, which is what I was trying to say in the ASEAN dialogue, you know, the potential is huge. And Hans-Rey Andrew said very clearly, people like me, Naze and Iqlas, I suppose. Iqlas is the first kind of Asian VC, which is really great for me. You know, there's more and more ASEAN things. We can't even

get an ASEAN lane in the airports, right? Tell me about it. So the sea games, why is it called the sea games, right? Should be the Asian games. And they said, oh, Timo's there. I said, oh, come on. I'm sure Timo's all right. Okay. Just you know, send a few Indonesians over there.

They'll be happy. So we've got to start trusting each other and put people first. If you put people first, everyone in Asian will benefit from Asian being together and AirAsian is a classic example of that that we've created an airline that has benefited the people of Asian and people don't really see whether it's Malaysia and Thai Indonesian they see it as their own kind of airline

product you know Charlie alluded to the fact that you were pioneering you know in terms of raising productivity in terms of ushering new innovation within the airline or the pre-existing airline industry. Talk about that before I want to push you on your next gig. Productivity. So, you know, that is the key. The key is people management, 100%. You know, the first thing I did when I joined AirAsia from a dungle recording was you know there were 250 people in eight offices I was like how disjointed is this right and if you look at any airline they have officers

all over the place right marketing is in one gang cabin crew is another building engineers are completely somewhere else and it's the most dysfunctional organization and hence it's leads to incredible wastage of cost, incredible lack of communication, and lack of productivity. And people just don't know what everyone else is doing. So the first thing I did was get rid of all the offices and put everyone in one office. And actually, it was our neighbors were MAS ramp boys. We took an office in KLA on the ramp section, right? And I said, we're going to win this.

Either we win this or we lose this, but we're going to do it. together and we're going to go through one door and everyone's going to know what everyone else does and then constant constant discussions every week we'd meet the whole company you know in the initial bits where everyone give ideas on how we could save money and be more efficient and i'll give you a great story right i one of the engineers told me um you know we we we We could save a lot of money if we landed the plane differently, using a different flap, using a different speed coming in. Because at that point, the airport had groove runway. So I said, well, just tell the pilots.

So no, we can't tell pilots how to fly a plane. And I said, why not? Said because we're not pilots. And I said, well, you are today. So we at 12 o'clock, I had a staff meeting. So we used to end our operation at 12 o'clock. So I call all the pilots in, all the engineers in. And I was actually with the ramp boys trying to improve productivity there and how to carry bags, right?

And then my PA calls me up and says, it's getting really heated. You've got to come up, right? I mean, the pilots want to kill the engineers, et cetera, et cetera. So I came up and it was really heated, right? It was like an I class kind of investors meeting, you know, too many pipes. And I learned a new word today, pipes. I never heard of that before. And MOIC, another good word. So, you know, pilots were getting upset that engineers. And I said, guys, we're in one company. Right. If an engineer has a good idea, listen. And that kind of

calmed down. And I said, if you don't listen, we'll fire you. So that got everyone's attention. But net net, we went from 50 landings per set of wheels to 500 landings per set of wheels. And at that time, it cost us $10 million ring get, right? It was a huge amount for us. And so slowly step by step. And then I led by example. Most CEOs sit in their office and command. I don't think you can be a good leader unless you're prepared to get down on the ground and know exactly what's going on.

I can change an engine. I can change a wheel on the plane. I sat there for weeks understanding everything about the engine and the plane. I'll give you, I used to carry bags once a month and check in once a month. And, you know, when we, when we move from Airbus to, from Boeing to Airbus, the Airbus is a couple of inches bigger. In the 737, we used to just throw the bags in. Actually, not throw the bags in, lovingly put the bags in. But in the airbus, my boys were saying, we need beltloaders.

You know, it's just too difficult. And I said, no, we can't afford belt loaders. And so the next time I was carrying bags, they put me on the Indonesian flights. Now, people who fly with us generally bring their house with them. People who fly to Indonesia bring their neighbor's house as well, right? So there's a lot of bags. And I almost broke my back. And I said, okay, guys, you're right.

I'm wrong. We go buy belt loaders. Right? I was sat in my office and I would have created a union and destroyed many people's backs. So I think part of it was I made the older management, you know, CFO, everyone know everything about the operation, understand what our staff went through and got everyone in the staff to understand what each one does. And, you know, we have an amazing computer on the plane provided by Airbus and Boeing, well, a cost index, which is how you measure the best way of burning fuel, right?

No pilot does it. Most pilots, you know, I mean, they love the feeling of 24,000 pounds of thrust, right? And the maximum and, you know, pull the full engines. And when they land, bang, massive brakes, that costs Uncle Tony a lot of money. I say, hey, you got a long runway, de-rate the engine, right? And you'll send air-a-rage you, it takes longer to take off. but we can land a space shuttle on most Asian runways, right? And I'm like, you know, cruise down and say, go speed up in your Porsche, right?

Not an hour, not an hour plane. And we have the best fuel burn in the world, right? Everyone knows what to do, but you've got to change the culture of the pilots that they feel part of this company and that it's important. And I've had to change it in Indonesia, Thai, all kinds of things, right? So I remember when I went to Thailand, we'll appreciate this. My former partner was a good friend of his. Thucin.

Former. Former. Former partner. Maybe new prime minister. So maybe partner again. Joke, joke. And the Democrats never liked me. You know, we used to come to Thailand with all kinds of shirts, because we never knew who was in power.

Red shirt, yellow shirt, orange shirt, green shirt. Who knows? When they were all demonstrating, our merchandise sales went up a lot. Because everyone was buying red shirts. So we had to change our uniform to black because all the yellow guys were unhappy with us. And they were protesting with Air Asia on there. So we went to Thailand to open Air Asia Thailand. The Thai said, oh, no, we can't do this.

You know, the pilots refused to go in the same. same. So I make pilots and cabins group go together and say like you're in one team, right? And, and I made the captain wait for the crew to finish off what they have to do and they leave together. Most airlines, the pilots just bugger off, right? And leave the crew to do everything. I said, no, and I made the pilots help the crew out, et cetera, et cetera. So Thailand, they said, no way. We don't do that. They're all ex-air force dudes, right? They're like, no, we're above. So I sent over a bunch of Malaysian pilots to show them the benefits of going the same bus together. In Net Net, we had five Thai-Malaysian marriages after that.

So you have to be creative in changing culture. I won't tell you what happened in Indonesia because we're in Bali now. But, you know, we had to work hard. I mean, I'm giving it with humor, but 90% of how we got our cost down to the lowest. And we're still the lowest cost in the airline in the world. You know, people said, oh, it's easy when you have five planes, six planes. But we have a complicated operation, you know, 200 planes, different countries, et cetera. But we're still the lowest cost airline in the world.

I remember calling Herb Keller, you know, who's the godfather of low cost. You know, I read his book and that gave me the idea of setting up a low-cost airline. And, you know, I said, I want to come and see Southwest. He said, no, I want to come and see Eurasia. How do you get those costs the way it is? And, you know, he came and he was, you know, and Southwest was known for people management, right? But they were blown away. You know, I give a story.

Alan Joyce, who is the CEO of Qantas, came to Eurasia a few months ago. And he said, this is a very strange organization. He said, why? He said, everyone wants to take pictures with you and it's nice to you. In Australia, they want to kill me. I have to, I have to walk to a bodyguard. someone wants to stab me in the back. So the cut a long story short, productivity for anyone in this room is about understanding

your business, but not from your big CEO office. It's from getting down and understanding it, understanding what your people do, being transparent, which is what we've been incredibly good at, having a very flat structure, appreciating people's efforts and building a culture that could survive COVID. what took us through COVID was our culture. 100%. Got it. You know, you were on my podcast a little over two years ago.

You started talking about this visionary stuff called the Super Rap and so coming to fruition. What gave you that vision and what gave you that confidence that you're going to be able to take other people's lunches? Yeah. Wow. Well, we did in the airline business in the list. No, I suppose, you know, business is business. It's a pretty competitive landscape. Yeah, look, I've had two, with all due respect to the tech dudes here,

I've had two kind of, what I call it, market distortors in my life. One is governments that continue to fund airlines, such as Thai, Malaysian, etc., when they really shouldn't exist, or they should exist, or they should really be restructured and run profitably. And to be fair, I think Garuda has tried very hard, right? And if you had done a good job until COVID, right? And I think the new CEO is doing a good job as well. And to be fair, I think Malaysian Airlines is also doing a good job.

Ties another story. But, and then tech guys who were given so much money, as Tessa said, even when they didn't won it, right? They were given money. And so they become inefficient in the deployment of capital. And they distort the market, right? So they give away their product the whole time. If you've given 10 billion, right, to go and acquire customers, who can't do that, right? Give your product away. A tough part is making money, which now they're all kind of struggling, right? Or make money? Oh, we didn't know we have to make money. So now they've got to cut cost and all the things we've had to do all this time. So how did I feel we could do it?

I felt that the bubble will burst for them. And so in the same way the bubble would burst for government airlines, that they couldn't keep subsidizing forever. At some point, the cash was going to dry out, right? And so I sat there and thought, yep, at some point, someone like Kenny Kim is going to wake up and say, when are you making money? You know, and then Eggman will come in

and Shan and all of them, the stormtroopers from Iqlas will come in. They'll ask a report option. Yes. And so, you know, I felt number one, this is pre-COVID when I started this vision, right? And two, airlines have got one amazing asset, which they don't realize, data, right? Our data is priceless compared to someone who delivers food. right, you can make up your name on grab and deliver of food. I'm sure many of you have. You can't make up your name to fly.

Well, you can try. And in some countries, you may get away with it. But even in those countries, you'll be caught eventually, right? So we have the best KYC. We also have a higher spend, right, and a more regular spend. So I thought, well, I've got a better data set. and I have an Asian data set, a Chinese data set, an Indian data set, that these other dudes don't have. And secondly, love us or hate us, we had a brand that everyone knew and that most people, we had transformed their lives.

I came up with a tagline. I was trying to think we must have, I think the other thing for entrepreneurs say, you must have a reason to exist. It class exists to create entrepreneurs and help businesses in ASEAN. That's your reason to exist, right? So my reason to exist was I saw a percentage. Only 1% of Indonesians flew, 6% of Malaysians, and 3% of ties. And I thought, wow, this is a great opportunity, right? I didn't know anything by the airlines, but it was just, you know, the brain wave came.

I didn't look at how to build an airline, all those things. But it was like, well, that's a good idea. There's a big market there, right? And so we had, I came up in the shower, actually, with a tagline now everyone can fly. Because that's what we've done, along with the other animal airlines. We've allowed everyone else to fly, right? And so that has created a very strong brand, right? everyone knows Air Asia.

I get out at Bali Airport and everyone knows us, right? And so wherever in Southeast Asia, we're quite well known. So I got data and a brand. And then I've got 21 years of running the lowest cost airline in the world. They gains guys, but not so efficient. Right. So, you know, people will say, can you make money and ride hailing? when Uber and Grab and all these guys can't, right?

Well, of course we can. Right. Now, certain VCs, when they look at it, it takes time. It takes a network. I mean, you know, if Kenny ran Eurasia, we'd have two routes, just flying to Singapore and Bali, right? Because he would say those are the two routes that make 15% positive M or IC or whatever number he comes up with, right?

So, but, you know, you need a Bain dude and pay him. him $7 million to tell Kenny, or more than $7 million. Okay, okay. U.S. dollars. Okay. Now, we're in the rupee market. So we're not using you. We'll just get egg man for free.

So you need, you need to build a reason to exist. I think Tesla statement was the best, creating value from what you got. Not all of those will return the 50% Ibitur. But if you create something different, that's going to drive the traffic into the 15% Ibiters, right? I'm trying to explain that to PE guys. Sometimes it isn't quite so easy. But Tesla did a very good job, and I text the PE guy on that.

But he didn't understand it. So for me, I thought I have three things. Brand. Actually, four things. Two, data. three costs and four people. Now, what have the gig economy done very poorly in my aspect, right, from where I'm sitting? The most important asset is the drivers and the riders, and they treat them the worst, right?

So what do we do? We hire our drivers full time. We give them ID90, we give them insurance, we give them, we look after them. They're really happy. They're very proud to be an Air Asia driver, right? And their productivity is 60% higher. There's no different from treating a pilot we respect and educating him being transparent, so he will save you fuel.

So those four things I felt gave me a credit. And then the fifth one is a lot of these gig companies are transactional. It's very one way. And so we are building a community, a messenger, content, et cetera, loyalty, NFTs to create stickiness. So I don't have to spend gazillions on Google and Facebook and all these other dudes, right? So that gave me the confidence. Now, you know, then COVID hit, but we still continued on that adventure. And we bootstrapped it because no one gave us any money, right?

And we bootstrapped and we've survived. And now we can rapidly grow. We can really take on, you know, the travel locus of the world and all these other dudes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, talk is cheap. We've got to do it. But I believe we have a good shot at doing it. So COVID was like the end of the world, but we took it two ways.

I mean, you're a musician, right? When oil is high, you play the blues. Right? When oil is lower, you play rock and roll, right? We'll translate that lady. We said, look, we put our heads in the sand and cry about this. We fight this, right? There are two ways of dealing with a crisis, turn into opportunity.

So we said, let's go build some other businesses. You're making money already? We're making money except for big pay, which Tessa will change. next week. And we are profitable in the super app or our logistics business. We never did cargo. We didn't understand that business. But we had no choice. I mean, one of the pluses of COVID, it showed us the logistics business on power. We took our first freighter last week. We believe we can take on DHL and FedEx. And we've gone from zero to number two to SQ. And by October,

overtake SQ is the number one air cargo provider in ASEAN. But we've got an airline, we've got a logistics business called teleport. We've got two digital businesses, Super App and Big Pay. And then we have our aviation services business. We stripped out, I had to see, what was the value in your business? There's loads of value in businesses, but they're always left there. So I had no choice, right? This is Darwinism, survival.

So I stripped out our engineering business and created a new company. ADE, we use a lot of data science. So we can leapfrog SATs with tons of technique because we're not doing predictive maintenance. We're using drones to inspect because a lot of these guys are stuck in the old ways. They can't change, right? So we leapfrog and now we raised $100 million and I really believe our engineering company become the biggest. We looked at food and said, how can we innovate in food? We all have wastage in food.

We can never work out ASEAN people. We either have too many Nassilama or too little, right? We never understand all of you when you eat and when you don't eat, right? And no data scientists will ever solve that. We are really peculiarly a bunch when it comes to food. So we worked with a Dutch university, and we probably, by next month, we'll be the first airline to have perishable, long-lasting food, right? And it tastes at the moment 99% and we'll get 100%.

It will last eight months. So gone. And that now becomes a business because we can export that food around the world. So where you were a student and you were buying, you couldn't get sambbal or whatever, we can now do that. So crisis leads to innovation, right? I'll tell you a funny story was when the Bali bomb happened, right? You know, every airline canceled their flights.

And I said, we can't do that. We made a lot of money from Bali. You know, we can't abandon them when they need us now. And I said, and they said, what do we do? I said, I know Malaysians very well. Okay. So we gave 5,000 free seats. You give a Malaysian a free seat.

They don't care about bombs. Okay. We're a very resilient nation. Before the free seat, I'm very scared to go to Bali. Free seat, I'm there. Free feet, I'm there. And we sold the 5,000 free seats. in three minutes, right?

The other second thing about Malaysians is when they get a good deal, they will tell 50,000 people about it. So they went to Bali, had a great time, came back, told everyone, nothing's wrong. We were the only airline never to cancel a flight to Bali. And we got awarded by the Bali government, you know, for being the only airline that didn't abandon Bali during the Bali bomb. And when Aceh was washed up,

Now, we were the only airline to fly to Aceh. And we still do fly to our chain. Every Achenese, it was a Chinese here just now. There we go. The anthropologist from Harvard. Every archinese will always have something nice to say about Eurasia, right? Because we'd ever abandoned them. So there you go.

Well done, man. I'm going to open it up to the floor. Anybody have any questions? I'm actually from Bandung. And yeah, as you said before that, they're going to remove the airport from Hussein, which is in the center of Bandung, to Kota Jati, which is about two hours from Bandung. And, yeah, it's pain. It's painful. I don't run the Indonesian government.

Complain to him. Well, my question is, what is your opinion about tourism in Bandung after? I mean, there's a lot of opinion about that, but I don't think it would be positive, especially for. or the Bandunis people. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a balance, right?

There's a balance. I mean, I loved in Malaysia, we had an airport called Subang, which was really a brilliant airport. And then they moved us to the middle of nowhere, right? But with time development comes, right? That land in Bandung becomes very valuable and a lot of people want to do it. And then other people outside of Bandung, Kattajatiari, their whole west. Bundung area wants access to airport. So it's sometimes hard

to be a politician just to be fair, right? And so they try to serve everybody. Okay, by putting an airport, which is it's not quite two hours. It's got better. Now, there's the, he's really unhappy. So he's made the two hours when it was one lane. It's probably about one hour, 20 minutes now, right? I know my bundan.

And we just started flying to Kutuzhati. from KL. So, you know, look, as an airline, we want it to be as cheap for everyone to get. It's not just a flight, you know, it's by getting to the airport. It's about coming out. It's about the hotel. So at every part of the ecosystem, that's why we developed the super act to create lower costs for the whole travel ecosystem, right? you know, I've got to be fair and that Hussein would eventually be full anyway. And so also you want to try and develop some of West Java. So there's never a perfect scenario.

But, you know, you've got to balance it. You've got to balance it. But I sometimes think governments throw away good assets. So in Thailand, you know, I fought very hard to keep Dong Wang open. In fact, Don Mon's open because of me. I fought really hard and said, don't get rid of it. And you, oh, yeah, you're Minister of Finance then. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I forgot, yeah. We had that meeting and hired. Yeah, correct. Yeah, yeah, you helped, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, the ties listened, right? And Don Wong's being expanded now. Because Savannah Boom's full as well. And you're looking at a third airport, which again,

we were the first to fly there in Pataya, where the Air Force owned it. And I wanted to fly there at the very beginning. So sometimes, you know, these are great assets. Sometimes we have a tendency to destroy them. I think now Malaysian government's going to extend Subang and make it like a city airport in London and a premium airport. So we shouldn't just give up. We give up things too quickly sometimes, you know. And so there's a battle.

There's a balance. Great. Okay, Tessa. She's going to give me a very low-cost payment gateway. Hi, Tony. I'm Tessa. I want your business. Yeah, you got it. Just give me the right rate. Got it. Very clear. I'll give you the quote tonight. So my question is this, right? I understand airlines. Why you started it. It's about disruption, right? It's a about changing the game on an old industry. But right hailing, why? Because I don't like Graham. Right hailing folks are new industry. Okay.

So what was I disrupting there? What was I disrupting the way they treated people? Right? That's what I was disrupting. I used to drive and I'd see motorbike guys with no raincoats hiding underneath the bridge when it was pouring with rain, right? So I always say in Eurasia, and we really have an amazing culture.

I mean, when I came to Bali after six years, you'd think I was the president of the United States. My staff were just so happy to see us, right? And so I thought I could disrupt it by treating people better and improving productivity. And you know, Tesla, today, today's a second big day for me. I, my wife left early for the airport, so I had to take an air rager ride to KLA, too. And the guy said, look, my dream is to be a pilot.

And so I said, well, I've always wanted someone to be, you know, from right hailing to go and be a pilot. And they just text me just now to say he passed the test to go into the first. So it's the first ride hailing guy who's got a chance to be a pilot. And we've done that all over. We've got, we're the first airline to have female pilots. You know, there were no female pilots in Assyan before Air Asia. And I remember asking my chief pilot, why are there no female pilots? And he said something that can be never repeated in public ever.

It was so bad. And I said, if a woman can run a country, she can certainly fly a plane. And, you know, we now have the highest percentage of female pilots of any airline in the world. And maybe just before COVID, we were history. Captain was female, co-pilot was female, all the crew of female, chief engineer was female, and all the passengers were male. No, no, no, that's not true. That's not true. It's just a joke.

So I want to disrupt the way we treat drivers. And I think, I'm not going to say it now, but I think one of our biggest advantages is airport, That's the most expensive, right? Taxis rip off people. ERL, our train service is more expensive than my flight, right? So why did I want to change it? I want to disrupt airport transport.

I want to create a pooling product. Because I know five people in Bangkok, all Democrats live near Corn's house. So when they're coming back from the win in the next election, they can all go in the same car. Look, I'm not going to say everything today because I'm sure there's some grab spice here or whatever. So, but we think we can disrupt. Yes, Nicky. So Tony, you talk a lot about culture, culture being the reason for the resilience and the innovation.

And I mean, just would love to, for you to just dive deeper into what exactly makes your culture, you know, yours. I mean transparency, 100%. Transparency, appreciation. You know, I know almost all my staff, right? It's a pretty flat structure. We don't have offices. We just have desks. Because everyone says they have an open door policy.

And the door's always closed, right? So we just have offices. I was very spectacular, right? We came in and everyone was arguing about, oh, my office doesn't face the counter. having crew, this one doesn't face the sun. So I just came in with, you know, someone like Mr. Trinity and just knocked all the walls down one day and said, okay, now everyone can see everything.

And that was the end. We had no offices after that. And we've kept that for 21 years. So, but I really think transparency, openness, humility. I think sometimes people think they're more important than they actually are. And that actually everyone contributes to the company. not one person is more important than the other and recognizing that the whole time

and you have to work at it I mean you have to work at it it isn't easy right and so we invest a lot in workplace because that enables us to have video conferencing with thousands and thousands of people everyone has my mobile phone number

and a pilot said MAS have been asking our pilots to join their union for a long long time And my pilot said, we don't need to because if we have a problem, we'll just text Tony or Cameroon or whoever else. So it is, accountants can't put a value to that culture. It is a huge value. And I think your biggest asset are the people in your company. And that's my job. My job is to keep unearthing raw diamonds and turning them into diamonds to take a boy who left school at 13 because of financial situations and make him a captain.

I mean, these are incredible stories, but you have to have that ability to allow people to have the confidence that they can do anything they want to do. So it is the single most important reason. It is, I mean, I could spend hours on it, but it is a thing that most companies avoid and don't deal with is that the culture, openness and transparency of the organization. So when we had our crash, our plane crash, you know, the lawyers were all telling me. I mean, it was the worst day of my life. I was actually supposed to go out with Nase that day. And I get a phone call saying, you know, we have lost contact with an aircraft. I mean, you cannot imagine what that feels like, right?

And then a whole bunch of lawyers come in and say, oh, no, you don't have to go. It's an Indonesian airline, and so it's their issue. And CEOs never go. And I said, are you crazy? I have to be there. I have to be there for my staff. I have to be there for the families. And I didn't know.

I was the first CEO in the history of aviation to meet every single family. And gave my mobile phone number to every single one. And I remember coming in, the world's press was there. There must be 500 cameras there. But we were open and transparent. And everyone in Air Asia, the caregivers through that period. And we're still in contact with many of those people in Surabai.

And recently we just relaunched that flight to rabbi. And I invited all the families to come over, actually, for that. So I think transparency, openness, engaging, being, you know, humble, and really getting to know your people is what our culture is about. It's not perfect. I'm sure that things are could be better. But, you know, so far it's tested that. test of time this 21 years.

For me, you just add a little bit more. And in terms of building a team across the geography, where you can't be in person face to face with everyone, how do you manage scaling that culture across these different, the region? Well, I mean, you know, video and, and a lot of, you know, messaging, communication, but then you get, many others, right? The next layer, they all come out with the same form of leadership, right?

Vera, our CEO in Indonesia came from Danone. She's a bat-up. I mean, she's a hard woman. We had to soften her a lot, right? And so, you know, and she's great. They learn the culture. She's amazing. And so you come into it. It's almost like a religious, you kind of, you either like it or you don't, some don't, right? But it's infectious. Okay, okay, last question.

William. Hi, Tony. After the Cholas abandoned Uncle Watt, I would not be too wrong to say you went back and made Ciam RIP. what and how would you do to the next destination of that kind? I mean, it's the same way. I mean, someone set it up here. ASEAN, I think it was Andrew, actually.

ASEAN has such diversity, culture, history. You know, if you think in Europe, they're virtually the same, right? Not much difference. The English like to think they're different. but the rest are the same. America, they're all the same, right? They're all the same. But you go from Thailand to Sulawesi.

It's very different, right? In between the Singapore, which is very unique itself. So we have it all, really. And so it's easy to promote. Right? So, you know, I mentioned Belintam. I mean, I think that's one of the most beautiful places in the world, but many of people haven't heard of it, same as Bandoom.

So it's promotion, social media helps a lot now. Word of mouth is still the best. Oh, but Lake Toba. Sorry? Lake Toba, yep. So this is one of my problems that I had a flight to Salangit, but now the airport's not international anymore. Lake Toba, when I went up to the lake, it's like Switzerland. It is unbelievable.

Like Lake Como. Yeah, it's actually like Lake Como. We need some hotels there, but it's beautiful, right? It could be one of it could be Locke Lomond, or Lake Zurich or Lake Como. It is unbelievable. But you need connectivity, right? This is, you kind of helped me in my case, right? So we had it.

We were doing great. And then someone in the Indonesian government said, everyone must fly through Jakarta. So no one's going to take a flight from Jakarta to Lake Tobar, right? They're not. So I, promoting, promotion is easy. You've got to provide the connectivity. because, you know, in Indonesia, Philippines is another massive potential,

massive potential. You know, you can swim with the whales in Cebu, right? Palawan is probably the most beautiful place on earth. Honestly, it's unbelievable. And so we are blessed in ASEAN. You know, we just need some politicians to, we need some blessed politicians. The good guys don't win.

All right, I'll stop there. A big hand for Tony. Thank you. This is end game.