AirAsia’s Executives and Staff Take Pay Cuts to Save Airline

The founders of Malaysia’s AirAsia will not take salaries and its staff has agreed to an as much as 75% cut in pay due to the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak on the airline, its chief executive said late on Saturday.

Tony Fernandes said in an Instagram post that he and Executive Chairman Kamarudin Meranun “will not be taking a salary during this period”, while staff from across the business “have accepted temporary pay reductions of anywhere between 15-75%, depending on seniority, to share the impact this is having on our business”.

The budget airline has no incoming revenue and 96% of its fleet is grounded, Fernandes said.

“We still have significant ongoing financial commitments such as fuel suppliers and leasing agents,” he said.

The airline has retained all its staff. The Budget airline has also urged customers to accept credit offers for flights cancelled instead of refunds.

AirAsia has suspended most of its flights since March and its long-haul arm, AirAsia X. It parked most of its aircraft in Kuala Lumpur until May 31.

AirAsia has the largest share at almost 100 A320 family aircraft.

All airlines around the world including AirAsia are suffering from reduced demand due to travel restrictions in bids to fight Covid-19.

The budget airline empire is also the second largest single customer of the Airbus A320neo family. With almost 400 aircraft orders. It is only beaten by Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo, which has a total of 730 orders for the A320neo and A321neo. Furthermore, AirAsia X is the largest customer of the Airbus A330neo.

The group received its first A330-900neo in August last year.

Source: Reuters