By Emmanuel Samarathisa
LOW-COST carrier AirAsia Group Bhd (AAGB) may have to make “some hard decisions” in its bid to survive amid the Covid-19 crisis, after implementing job cuts and other cost-cutting measures.
“It’s going to be tough. I can’t promise that there won’t be some pain going forward. We are doing our best to minimise redundancies, to minimise pay cuts. But I’m coming from the philosophy that I’d rather everyone suffer a little bit than just a few,” AAGB founder Tan Sri Tony Fernandes told staff in a livestream to commemorate his 56th birthday.
But Fernandes said the group would “have to restructure” moving forward. “We are probably going to make some hard decisions. But rest assured, we are going to do our best to minimise the pain for all of you,” he said, without going into detail about what these “hard decisions” were.
AAGB said in a statement yesterday that it would resume domestic flights to selected routes, to be followed by Thailand (May 1, 2020), the Philippines (May 16, 2020), and Indonesia (May 7, 2020), subject to approval from the authorities.
The group added that it had expected to save 30% of cost this year after initiating a slew of measures including slashing salaries as well as not taking delivery of any aircraft.
AAGB said it would continue to diversify its revenue base to mitigate effects of the pandemic with a focus on its digital and ancillary businesses such as Teleport, BigPay and Santan. – April 30, 2020
