Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Air Asia : RM 25 million discount

Yesterday, I saw a blog article by Warisan2057 who criticized the move by the Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) in giving discounts to Air Asia amounting to RM 25 million.

Read it here : Lagi skandal Kementerian Pengangkutan

It was an "incentive" courtesy of the Malaysian Government to Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes' airline company so that they settle their airport taxes owed to MAHB.

Indeed, after mounting pressure, Air Asia settled part of its arrears to Air Asia - with the RM 25 million discount of course. In total, Air Asia paid RM 111 million to MAHB.

Read more here : Incentive helps AirAsia pay airport tax arrears

I do not wish to be too critical of Warisan2057's article as I believe we are all Barisan Nasional supporters.

However, I would like to correct the article by the blogger that seem to push the blame of the discount to the Minister of Transport.



The discount was not given by the Transport Ministry and neither is it a scandal by the Minister of Transport or MCA. As far as I know, money matters are dealt with by the Ministry of Finance.

In the build up of events from the controversial proposal of Air Asia LCCT in Labu till today's RM 25 million discount, the financial matters regarding Air Asia and the MAHB have always been handled by the Ministry of Finance.

My dear friends and readers, you can check and confirm this matter from the following articles
  1. MAHB To Resolve Airasia's Airport Tax Debt Soon - Najib
  2. AirAsia wants MAHB to recommend cut in LCCT airport tax
  3. Government appoints consultant to resolve AirAsia airport tax arrears

As such, I hope to see a blog article clarification or withdrawal of the article by Warisan2057 and other bloggers whom have linked up the criticism of the RM 25 million Air Asia tax discount to the Transport Ministry as a scandal.

This is not a matter or jurisdiction under the Transport Ministry, I believe.

I am writing this out of respect for the facts and it is a great matter of importance as my fellow bloggers have strong readers base.

I too disagree with the RM 25 million discount actually.

Each passenger pays airport taxes to Air Asia whenever they book a ticket I believe. The same applies for me in all my travels onboard Malaysia Airlines.


As such, I don't know why Air Asia is given such a nice big angpow.

Promoting AirAsia to win the airline competition will come at the expense of Malaysia Airlines which is also heavily supported by the Government.

I hope that the Ministry of Finance and the Economic Planning Unit which study this "discount" to Air Asia realise this and have weighed the pros and cons.

The RM 25 million could have been used to sponsor
  • another 25 bright Malaysian students to study Medicine in Australia,
  • another 75 bright Malaysian students to study Finance in Australia,
  • and I believe hundreds of students to study in local universities or private colleges.

No ?

I am a strong fan of Malaysia Airlines and have always chosen Malaysia Airlines for my domestic and international flights. I enjoy the Malaysian Hospitality to be honest.

This is a fact known among my circle of friends but I hope my criticism of the Air Asia's RM 25 million discount is not seen as a bias remark.

I stand corrected.

4 comments:

justice4otk said...

GWL

Good work on this piece , at least we can concentrate on other pressing issues .

Nothing to worry about CSL ...

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
veteran said...

GWL. I congratulate you at least for doing some research before uttering nonsense, unlike, the LTL faction. What about doing some research or searching on the MCA Snoop Squad or the latest on the PKFZ Scandal.

Anonymous said...

The RM 25 million could have been used to sponsor

* another 25 bright Malaysian students to study Medicine in Australia,
* another 75 bright Malaysian students to study Finance in Australia,
* and I believe hundreds of students to study in local universities or private colleges.

Bull crap. I like the "dreams" but lets go into details of "bright" students. Let's go more into offering who gets these scholarship. I for one believe whoever gets these scholarships should be the actual bright students. Forget race. If this is done, I'm truly up for it. Till then, maybe this money is better to be used for the lesser evil.