AirAsia: Overview, Challenges And Success Factors

Nature of the business

AirAsia is a Malaysian low-cost airline and it has it headquarter in Kuala Lumpur. AirAsia is the largest airline in Malaysia by destinations and fleet size. AirAsia commenced its operation in the year 1996. AirAsia reached the revenue of RM5.01 billion in the year 2016 and net income of the organisation was RM1.57 billion in 2016 (Airasia.com, 2018).

Nature of the business

AirAsia Berhad is in the airline industry and it has been named as the world’s best low-cost career for consecutive nine years. Therefore, AirAsia provides air transport services for travelling passengers at low cost.  

The markets served

AirAsia operates in more than 165 destinations across more than 25 countries. Asia has its low-cost carrier terminal at Kuala Lumpur and its affiliate airlines are AirAsia India, Indonesia AirAsia, Thai AirAsia and Philippines AirAsia. Fleet size of the organisation excluding subsidiaries is 89. AirAsia X mainly focuses on long-haul routes (Airasia.com, 2018).  

Challenges faced

Airbus 320-200 went missing with 162 people on board from Indonesia city heading towards Singapore. It came to the news that Airbus of AirAsia crashed into the Java Sea. Consequences of this incident led to drop the airfare by almost 9% to bring the passengers back. AirAsia faced the issue of declining the value of the domestic currency in Malaysia. In recent time, AirAsia faces the issue due to rising fuel price and high landing charge.

For some of the business leaders, success is monetary rewards and creating a positive impact on others in the business. According to Dijkhuizenet al., (2017), success in business is the gradual realisation of worthy goal and success can be defined for accomplishing the goals with creativity, hard work and passion. In the business world, success can be stated as running a profitable organisation with integrity and honesty along with making a meaningful contribution to the communities it serves. It can also be stated that success is something all the leaders striving to get it and success comes in different shape and size. In the arena of the business, success is meeting the goals which have been set by the leaders. As stated by Djamasbi et al., (2014), success is about comparing the business with others; however, it is about accomplishment and growth.

Measuring the success of the organisation

Balance scorecard is a strategic planning and management system which organises organisations utilises to communicate what the organisations are trying to accomplish. Balance scorecard prioritises the projects, services and products and it helps to measure and monitor progress towards strategies targets (Fooladyand et al., 2015). Balance scorecard helps to measure the organisations in four perspectives to develop the KPIs, objectives, initiatives and target.

• Financial elementstalk about financial performance and resource use
• Customer and stakeholderelement points out the customer value and satisfaction along with retention
• Internal processdeals with efficiency and quality
• Organisational capacitytalks about human capital and infrastructure, technology and culture

The markets served

Balance scorecard of AirAsia

	Objectives	Performance measure	Initiatives
Financial perspective	Improve cost structure and increase asset utilisation	Plane lease cost	Reduced cash expenses Improve Yields Eliminate defects
Expand revenue opportunities	Market value and seat revenue	News source revenue Improve profitability

Market capitalisation of AirAsia

	Objectives	Performance measure	Initiatives
Customer and stakeholder perspective	Increasing market share and customer retention	Number of repeat customers	Implementation CRM and providing sustainable promotions
Customer satisfaction and customer profitability	Lowest prices and flights are on time	Implementation of customer loyalty and monitoring changes in consumer trends

Passengers increase table:

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Passengers carried	21,853,036	22,138,796	24,254,506	26,410,922	39,092,972

Table 1: Operating statistics

(Source: Ir.airasia.com, 2018)

	Objectives	Performance measure	Initiatives
Internal business process	Operation management	On-ground time and departure on perfect time	Develop innovative marketing and communication programme and cycle time optimisation
Innovative process	Growth ancillary and products and services	Drive organisational performance Develop marketing business intelligence

	Objectives	Performance measure	Initiatives
Learning and growth	Human capital and organisational capital	Strategic job readiness	Ground crew training and human resource technology competence
Information capital	Strategic brand awareness	Communication programme and employee stock ownership

Increase of staffs in AirAsia:

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Number of employees at the year-end	6.089	6.304	6.654	7,651	12,404

Table 2: Operating statistics of AirAsia

(Source: Ir.airasia.com, 2018)

Use newer planes: Tony Fernandes does not want to spend much on maintenance of the planes; therefore, average fleet age of AirAsia is just 4.7 years. Therefore, the airplanes are fuel efficient and customers feel comfortable and safer. The youngest fleet of the US is at least 7 years old, whereas, AirAsia lowers the cost of their operation and provide passenger satisfaction through providing newer planes.

Charge only for value added items: The customers get disgruntled when they have to pay extra for anything. Budget airlines take money from the customers by providing extra facilities. AirAsia charges only extra when they provide something value-added services to the passengers like priority boarding and extra leg-room.

Direction: The organisations need direction from the leaders with vision and in difficult times; the leaders show the direction with clear idea and mission. Business leader Tony Fernandes has been showing the direction to AirAsia and he keeps the long-term plan for the immediate needs of AirAsia.

Speed of the market: The organisations need to understand the rate of technology development as the organisations should produce the service or product for better deliverables to the customers. Airline industry is vibrant and the firms need to take the acceleration to understand the market. When the business is young; it is hard to compete with established companies. The reason behind the success of AirAsia is to reach the customers first through low-pricing.

Dedication: In the early stage of the business, the organisations need the leaders and employees who can work hard to reach the goals. The leadership of the business, Tony Fernandes inspires the commit the work-ethic and dedicated workforce (Mackie, 2018). AirAsia has its own mission and the employees must be committed to working for reaching the objectives.

Perseverance: In the early stage; when the journey gets tough and the road of success has blockage and bumps; the organisations need to persevere to gain the success. The majority of the organisations face disagreements when the management tries to find successful strategies (Tahseen & Ramayah, 2015). AirAsia becomes successful when it sticks to the turbulent with their end goal during the difficult times. AirAsia uses ‘cheap flying buses’ and it has started long-haul flights as well to earn money.

Challenges faced

Complete on experience and service: AirAsia learns fast to adopt changes as it is the key to bring success for the organisations in a comfortable ay. Tony Fernandes knows the process of making fast decisions with a clear roadmap which can bring the advantage of opportunities. In the turmoil condition, the organisations must know the process of quick adaption what the companies should not miss. Good services are always the touch-points for the customers and Tony Fernandes always asks the staffs to be smiling always.

Primary Activities
Inbound logistics	Landing slots were fewer resources and it possessed a critical factor in the airline industry. AirAsia should ensure that landing slots must support its schedule of the flights. Aircraft leasing and purchasing promise growth to the organisation. In aircraft parts and fuels purchasing, it is very important to maintain the budget as it affected AirAsia around 30% of the overall cost (Man, 2016).
Outbound logistics	AirAsia provides transportation services and it has no such significant outbound logistics process.
Operations	In transporting the passengers, this is the main resource for AirAsia to create profit. In maintaining the aircraft ground; AirAsia took the method of driving down the cost for the activity in suppressing the low cost. In-flight scheduling; AirAsia has a well-planned schedule and it keeps on time which enables time and it also adds more value on time to deliver the air carrier.
Sales and Marketing	AirAsia does intensive advertising and they have brought approximately 5 million customers to use the service of AirAsia. AirAsia uses online sales more than 50 percent of their seats and by optimising the online computer reservation system; they make their sales (Man, 2016). CRM and E-Business are helpful for AirAsia.
Services	AirAsia has call centre system to tackle the problems of the customers and they provide services inside the flights. The management solves the issue through social media and website chats.
Support Activities
Firm infrastructure	AirAsia has evolved into a classic integrated service provider and the organisation is focusing on their strategic goals. Headquarter is located in Kuala Lumpur. The organisation is providing the cheapest airfare and decision-making process is simple.
Human resource management	At present, AirAsia has more than 15,000 employees and the employees are assigned to work for multi-purposes. The organisation maintains the company mission and the employees work hard to achieve the mission. AirAsia provides compensation to the employees. The HR department recruits and trains the employees to keep the team highly skilled.
Technology	AirAsia develops a method in maintaining and operating best technologies to suppress the cost. It uses Yield Management System (YMS) and Computer Reservation System (CRS) to sell the tickets through the web-based platform. Resource Planning System is very helpful to save the time and speed up the reporting of data.
Procurement	AirAsia searches the best quality aircraft and fuel among the suppliers so that it cannot drive the cost high.

Significant resources

1. AirAsia is very responsive and supportive management that listens to the issues of the management which can reduce the operation cost. This supporting mentality makes the employees productive and creative.
2. The employees are highly skilled and educated. The knowledge and experience of the employees make the organisation better than the competitors. AirAsia compensates well to reduce the probability for the competitors to hijack the ideas.
3. AirAsia has the capability and technological support to reduce the cost. The effect of reducing the cost is used as a competitive weapon (Picard et al., 2018).
4. The reputation and brand image of AirAsia plays the role of intangible resources for the organisation.

Capabilities

1. Low-cost short hauls: Management of AirAsia confers with mechanics to coddle spare parts so that the aircraft can last longer. The mechanism can extend the landing gear usage time and the pilots take the shallow approach to landing. AirAsia keeps the aircraft new and they operate in short-haul (Airasia.com, 2018).
2. Quick turnaround time: AirAsia does not keep the aircraft on the land for a long time as it will make the aircraft less productive. AirAsia keeps the turnaround timeless so that it gains more profit. It is gained by removing the frills services and AirAsia removes the chair booking along with extensive crew drilling on performing of the quick turnaround time.
3. The high rate of aircraft utilisation: The aircraft are maintained in a proper way and these aircraft are utilised at a higher rate. The higher rate of aircraft utilisation leads to higher profit. The skilled workforce helps the organisation to run the business.

Competency

These capabilities help AirAsia to perform well and to provide low-cost air transportation service. Core competencies of AirAsia are the safety first and high aircraft utilisation. AirAsia transports the passengers in low fare and no frill. Streamline operation and lean distribution of AirAsia helps the organisation to provide the lowest ticket price to the passengers (Holahan et al., 2014). Core competencies of AirAsia are the economies of scale, small inventories and reduce time on employees training and learning curve.

Valuable: AirAsia has valuable resources like technological development, human resources and management capabilities to manage the growth. These resources help AirAsia to provide cheap flight ticket. Fundamental resources of Airline Company are the scarcity, demand and appropriately determine the value of the capabilities and resources.

Rare: These resources of AirAsia are rare to understand the demand in the market and their Computer Reservation System distributes the seats perfectly. As a Low-Cost Carrier, the resources and capability of the organisation are rare.

Inimitable: The resources of AirAsia are something generic in the airline industry; no frills concept and fast turnaround time are easy to imitate.

Non-substitutable: Resources and capabilities of AirAsia provide affordable to airfares by hedging the low fuel price and cost saving from operations. Group fleet size of AirAsia is 174 and it has its own subsidiaries in Thailand, India and the Philippines (Airasia.com, 2018).

Resources	Valuable	Rare	Inimitability	Organisation	Competitive implication
Physical resources	?	?	No	No	Temporary competitive advantage
Technology	No	?	?	?	Sustained competitive advantage
Organisational resources	No	?	?	?	Competitive parity
Human assets	?	?	No	?	Temporary competitive advantage
Brand image	No	?	?	?	Sustained competitive advantage
Relationship	?	No	?	No	Sustained competitive advantage
Company culture	No	?	?	No	Competitive parity

Datuk Kamarudin Meranun is the Executive Chairman of AirAsia and Tony Fernandes is the Group CEO of AirAsia. Datuk Kamarudin is the co-founder of AirAsia and Tony Fernandes was the business partner of him. They acquired struggling domestic airline in the year 2001 and they relaunched AirAsia as the budget travel across Asia. They both tried hard to make AirAsia as the world’s best low-cost carrier. Datuk Kamarudin is a non-independent Executive Chairman and he took lead in engaging with the government, airport authorities and aviation regulators. These both leaders bought the ailing airline for a token MYR1 (almost USD 0.25) and MYR 40 million in debt and they turned it around within two years and grew it from Malaysian domestic carrier into Asia’s largest low-cost carrier by passenger carrier (Airasia.com, 2018). The leaders within AirAsia take the strategy of participative leadership where the leaders think that AirAsia is the greatest company to work as it allows the employees to chase the dreams. AirAsia was the first Low-Cost Carrier in Asia and it had started with four young men with no experience in the Airline industry. Tony Fernandes had his role model, Richard Branson; the founder and Chairman of Virgin Conglomerate. Tony Fernandes knew Richard Branson when he worked as financial controller at Warner Music. Fernandes and Kamarudin managed to make AirAsia from a failing government-linked Commercial airline to successful budget airline.

Measuring the success of the organisation

The leaders in AirAsia started its journey with RM40 million in debt and they started making a profit since 2001. In the year 2010, AirAsia made the RM1 billion profits mark (Routesonline.com, 2018). In the year 2011, the oil price has been increased by 36% and revenue of AirAsia reached RM4.49 billion in 2011. The good performance of AirAsia and the affiliates contributed in part of the ancillary income that increased in all three business operations. The leader, Tony Fernandes introduced simple and humble workplace culture and the leaders help the task to ask about anything anytime. The leaders believe that the recruitment of the employees is one of the right ways to get success for the organisation (Adler et al., 2017). Tony Fernandes asks the HR to search for the people who could be a potential new staff member. The leaders in AirAsia put the employees out of the comfort zone and bring out what they can do from the staffs.  

Leadership styles:

Tony Fernandes follows the ‘walk-around management style’. Tony Fernandes believes in working with the employees and Tony Fernandes says that he learns new things while working with the skilled employees. AirAsia needed belt loaders to move the cargo and belt loaders were heavily expensive. Tony Fernandes made the decision of purchasing the belt loaders; however, his business was in debt during that time. AirAsia never compromised with the quality service and Tony Fernandes kept the customised food menu as add-ons on the offer (News.abs-cbs.com, 2018). Ancillary income was one of the important sources of revenue for AirAsia, planned by Tony Fernandes. Tony Fernandes follows transactional leadership style as he likes to command to follow the rules to fulfil the objectives. Transactional leadership focuses mostly on the outcomes and it conforms to the structure of the organisation and the leaders measure the success by the firm’s system of rewards and penalties (McCleskey, 2014). Transactional leaders have the formal authority to take the responsibilities on behalf of the organisation and the leaders like to maintain routine to manage the performance of the staffs. Tony Fernandes decided to do the cargo services today and it enjoys the pro-rate agreement with the suppliers. The leaders decided to start AirAsia Red Carpet which treated with the passengers as VIPs (Airasia.com, 2018). It offers special treatment to the passengers from check-in to baggage counters.

Ansoff Matrix shows the growth strategy of an organisation and it has four major quadrants. Each of the quadrants has a different element for the new and existing market. AirAsia is in the airline industry and it has been fetching the growth of the organisation using mainly market penetration strategy and market development strategy.  

Balance scorecard of AirAsia

Market development  

AirAsia has its main hub in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and it has subsidiaries airlines in order to bring the growth of the business apart from just Malaysia. In the beginning; AirAsia had only six routes in the year 2002 and today it has 74 destinations via 175 routes. In only the Malaysia, it management adds nine more routes. Market development strategy targets the non-buying customers in currently targeted segments (Ramon-Rodriguez et al., 2015). AirAsia targeted the customers in the segment and it brought the sales to expanding the sales of airline tickets in different areas. AirAsia affiliate airlines like Indonesia AirAsia, Indonesia AirAsia X, AirAsia India, Thai AirAsia and Philippines AirAsia. Since January 2011, AirAsia introduced almost 21 new routes. From Malaysia, AirAsia added more than nine routes to Indonesia and it adds different cities of Indonesia. AirAsia also developed a new hub in Thailand, named Chiang Mai. AirAsia also started the new destinations in the Northern part of Thailand and it introduced seven more sky bridges in Chiang Mai (Airasia.com, 2018). Most importantly, AirAsia is thinking to start its new north Asian venture with All Nippon Airways, AirAsia Japan. The leaders of AirAsia think that Japan is the underserved economy and three domestic routes of Japan are already busy and AirAsia is going to offer low cost in a high-cost environment.  

Market penetration

Ancillary services: AirAsia provides the ancillary services like pre-book check-in baggage and it led to increasing the revenue by 52%. The customers get the service like Pick-A-Seat and the customers can also get the service like in-flight meals. AirAsia started the customised food option for the passengers as it is the add-on services for the passengers. Inflight meal services have been increased by 38% in the last two years (Airasia.com, 2018). AirAsia started the cargo service and its network is trying to expand. AirAsia offers more destinations with the trademark of competitive price. AirAsia offers more destinations services by making a partnership with other airlines and it enjoys pro-rate agreement. AirAsia started the premium lounge for the customers for only RM100 for all international and domestic flights. These values-for money services have been helping the organisation to grow in the industry.

Fleet expansion: In December 2004, AirAsia bought 40 Airbus A320 Aircraft and it was a big step from the side of AirAsia. Today;AirAsia has more than 200 Airbus A320neo, the latest model. These aircraft are fuel efficient and it has other 175 Airbus A320. AirAsia has supreme confidence in further growth as in India, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.  

 Adjacency business: AirAsia brought the significant development of branching new business structure as they call it adjacency business. AirAsia thought of making a partnership with the leaders in business related to aviation and travel. AirAsia wants to capitalise the resources to establish steady and sizeable new income stream. The adjacency business will be monitored through the database and will turn this from a cost centre to profit centre. AirAsia made its first adjacency business to make the joint venture with Expedia, largest online travel organisation. This joint venture offered the customers great value flights and hotels. AirAsia further made a joint venture with CAE Inc, a Canada based civil aviation training. AirAsia wanted to provide state-of-art training facility to the employees. Finally, AirAsia made the joint venture with Tune Money to provide the loyalty programme to the passengers named Big. Big was launched in the year 2011.

Low-cost leadership: AirAsia provides low-fare to passengers and it is the best low-cost carrier airline in Asia. Low-cost leadership strategy in the Asian market has achieved through successful negotiation for a long-term maintenance contract and low-airport charges (Alamdari& Fagan, 2017). AirAsia has an absence of fringe services to the customers. Low-cost leadership provides AirAsia with a high profit. AirAsia fixed the lower cost by decreasing the contractual lease for more than 60%.

Single Class: AirAsia started the single class service, lower prices and without frills. Passengers initially were not allocated seats, amenities are low and entertainment is also minimal. AirAsia has the aircraft designed to minimise the tear and wear, cleaning the time and cost. New aircraft provides low maintenance expenses and it improves the process efficiencies.

Low distribution cost and high aircraft utilisation: AirAsia utilises the IT like e-ticketing and it lowers the distribution cost by reducing the need for the expensive and large booking or the reservation of seats. The agents’ commission was also low and this saves the cost of issuing the physical ticket. In addition, the efficiency and utilisation of the aircraft are high as the point-to-point service is more in AirAsia.

PEST analysis

Political: The World Bank provided the average value for political stability index of Malaysia showing the minimum average is 0.0 points and the maximum is 0.56 points. UMNO is the predominant political party in Malaysia and it has good political stability for industrial growth and investment. S&P Global Rating also stated that cohesiveness of Malaysian government will keep the interest high for investors (Peletz, 2018). Therefore, political stability will remain clam for development of AirAsia as Malaysia’s matured bureaucracy is a key stabiliser for political instability. The investors are expecting to change the reporting structure of several important agencies to enhance the independence and transparency of government agencies (Peletz, 2018).

Economic: At present, the GDP of Malaysia is $ 1.002 trillion and GFP growth of Malaysia touches 5.0%. Most of the GDP (56%) is coming from the service industry (Park &Yoo, 2018). The inflation rate is 3.6% and the population below the poverty line is 0.4%. Malaysia has the labour force of 15.03 million and the unemployment rate in Malaysia is 3.4%. Malaysia is ranked 24^th in ease-of-doing business (Al-Shaghadari et al., 2017). The Malaysian economy is getting towards high-income economy as the anticipated growth of the Malaysian economy touches 5.8% and projected growth for the next two years is 5.2% (Park &Yoo, 2018). In the airline industry, Malaysia has been observed strong year-on-year industry performance and traffic growth of between 6.5% and 7% to more than 100 million passengers forecast for 2018.

Social: Malaysia is a multi-racial country and it is known for social incorporation and the social factor is important for the economic boom of the country. Since the time of the beginning of the economic boom, Malaysia is known for a meeting of a diverse range of external culture and religion (Andaya&Andaya, 2017). Most of the people in Malaysia consist of Malay, Chinese, India and Indigenous. Main ethnic group in Malaysia is native Malay and Malay is the official language. Malaysia is getting towards the higher income country and the spending of people will be increased with time. Despite the ethnic differences, Malaysian people have commonalities.

Technological: Malaysia is advancing towards better technology and large multinational companies have their offices in Malaysia. Malaysia sets the objective of advance technological improvement with commercial potential. Malaysia turns to technology in a bid to reach the high-income status. AirAsia will be benefited as the airline industry is highly related to technological advancement and in order to remain competitive, AirAsia needs to use the newest technology.

AirAsia is successful at present as the organisation is successful to provide the fixed low-price journey to the passengers. For AsiaAsia, China is the principal battleground as the low-cost carrier is growing in North Asia. In 2018, AirAsia celebrates two significant milestones. AirAsia is observing the booming of the low-cost airline and Tony Fernandes is thinking to provide discount operation and he also thinking of regional revolution. AirAsia is thinking of bilateral agreements to be the most significant airline in Asia. The industry has the bigger economic promise with an additional 2.5 billion passengers to be flying in Asia Pacific region(Cnbc.com, 2018). AirAsia needs to look for penetration in North Asia along with mature across Southwest Asia.

Tony Fernandes has allowed for the possibility of a single company owing 100% of all the AirAsia airlines operating in ASEAN which may bring the share price up. The complicated structure of the AirAsia group is the reason behind the low share price of AirAsia. AirAsia is thinking to use data and ecosystem to use for the revolution. AirAsia has already planned to remove the cash off the plane as the customers can pay the bill using AirAsia payment system using digital currency.  AirAsia can take the initiative of in-flight advertising initiative to build the brand equity and brand image along with bringing the revenue. AirAsia can start using biofuel like Brazilian airlines. AirAsia can also join Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group (SAFUG) to raise the concern of environment-friendly operation. The aggressive promotional campaign will help the organisation to have large passenger base.

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