The boss of one of Asia’s largest and most well-known budget airlines, AirAsia, is being roasted on social media after posting a photo of himself onboard a flight operated by rival full-service carrier Singapore Airlines – famed for its luxurious product and well-trained cabin crew.
Airline entrepreneur Tony Fernandes took to Instagram where he explained that he had been forced to fly with Singapore Airlines because all of AirAsia’s flights on the same route were fully booked.
In one photo in which Fernandes is about to board the Boeing 737MAX aircraft, the businessman who is often dubbed ‘Malaysia’s Richard Branson’ gives two thumbs up with the caption underneath reading: “No seat on Air Asia for three flights so had to take Singapore Airlines. Hehehe”.
In a second photo, the billionaire business tycoon posted a photo of what appears to show him sitting in an Economy class seat on Singapore Airlines flight SQ113 from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.
The post provoked a mixed response, with some people insisting that Fernandes flying on Singapore Airlines – which was recently crowned the World’s Best Airlines by Business Traveler USA and has a slew of similar awards to boast about – was proof that AirAsia was so successful because it couldn’t make room even for its CEO.
Other’s, however, roasted Fernandes over his choice of airline, saying he probably felt like flying Singapore Airline was an ‘upgrade’.
“Don’t lie Tony. Even you don’t wanna fly airasia,” one person wrote in response to the now-viral post. “Once a while it’s nice to experience a great way to fly,” another wrote.
Others suggested he should have flown with Scoot – the low-cost subsidiary of Singapore Airlines.
Fernandes recently made headlines after another social media post in which he shared a shirtless photo of himself having a back massage while leading a meeting at AirAsia’s head office.
The post disappeared from Linkedin a few days later after Fernandes faced a barrage of criticism over the stunt. In the now-deleted post, Fernandes said a colleague had suggested he get a massage because he had faced a long and stressful week.
Fernandes later said he didn’t mean to offend anyone.
This isn’t a roast. Leaders of various industries use competitors products all the time (if you can even consider SQ a competitor to AirAsia). Convenience, comfort, amenities, correlate to productivity, as does schedule, availability, etc. We’re talking about one of the richest guys on the planet here. His time, and ability to be productive, is more valuable than that of 99.99% of people’s. In light of that, he’s “a man of the people” for flying commercial at all. The idea that he should be expected to deal with the hassles of commercial flying, let alone those of flying on a ulcc (even if he owns it) is kind of ridiculous.