Posted on 07/08/2009 4:41:54 AM PDT by radar101
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Tony Fernandes, the chief executive of Malaysia's upstart AirAsia airline, seldom shies away from a fight.
A former executive at Time Warner Inc.'s music division, Mr. Fernandes bought the debt-laden carrier in 2001 for 27 cents and turned it into Asia's biggest budget airline with $754 million in annual revenues. It hasn't been easy. To expand AirAsia Bhd., he's battled reluctant governments for landing rights and routes and has endured price wars with regional competitors.
A Delicate EquationView Interactive .See a timeline of AirAsia expansion and Malaysian affirmative action policies. . Now, as Mr. Fernandes pushes to build a new low-cost global hub and expand into Europe, Australia and the U.S., he is running into a tenet of modern Malaysia: affirmative action. Malaysia's political leaders prefer to see big business such as airports in the hands of the ethnic-Malay majority, and often that means government control.
"A lot of Malaysians are proud of what AirAsia has achieved," says Mr. Fernandes, a 45-year-old Malaysian of Indian descent. But successes such as his, he believes, are outnumbered by the economic problems created by the affirmative action system. "It's a very Jekyll-and-Hyde situation here."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
In Malaysia, it is reverse discrimination wherein the Chinese- and Indian- descent Malaysians need to jump much higher hoops for the same position than a native Muslim Malay.
The question of RACE should not even BE on job applications!
Since this is a Tropical area you'll find that most everybody has a deep tan.
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