14 thoughts on “Tony to respond “QZ 8501 was unauthorised to fly on Sunday””

  1. Let’s see how the Spin Doctor is going to spin his way out of this fix. May be BK Sidhu the editor of Star Business will come to his assistance. Why is that mercenary Sidhu is so quiet now. I would expect Sidhu to publish that despite the bad news, the AirAsia share price is still soaring. By the way according to market sources.

    This time round the spin doctor is in deep shit. He cannot run away from it this time.

    • Not only The Star but also The Malaysian Insider have gone rather quiet on this validity and suspension issue.

      Luck for Air Asia that only its Surabaya-Singapore flights have been temporarily suspended and not all of its operations in Indonesia.

  2. Don’t expect the keypad warrior to show his face until all the hard work had been done by the SAR team. While these courageous men and women are risking life and limb, this publicity whore is “rallying the troops” via twitter knowing very well, story hungry journalists will be quoting his tweets for human interest stories to fill it’s pages.

    If he had any cow sense, he would know that the people who are toiling day and night to recover the bodies of the victims and ensure they are laid to rest properly have no time to check their tweets to receive his words of support and encouragement.

    Once in a while, he will pop up with crocodile tears and glum faced when VIPs are around.

    He hides behind his tweets and only resurfaces when cameras are around.

    If all the allegations against AirAsia are to be found true, the keypad warrior and his associates should be charged for manslaughter!

    Too many innocent lives have been lost to the greed of people like him.

  3. Well Sdr. Wee, If AitAsia indeed had got the OK from Indonesia for a Sunday flights on the Surabaya-Singapore sector, then it would be a simple matter for AirAsia to produce the document and this question of validity will be laid to rest once and for all.

    • I do agree that it is damn obvious that there is no letter of approval for AA’s Sunday flight from Surabaya to Singapore otherwise the Big Mouth will be out in the same day waving the letter of approval in his hand. The Pariah will not dare to play with Singapore because Singapore will not tolerate his nonsense. Singapore will not hesitate to prosecute if there was such violation.

      The Pariah had done to Malaysia by not handing over collection of airport tax and the Sleeping Govt allowed it to drag on for many years. He tired in Jakarta and the AA flight was not allowed to take off and AA had to make cash payment.

      Now he can get away with this violation because the insurance company will deny liability. Pity the loved ones of the passengers and crew.

      We must all think twice before taking AA flights.

      • There seems to be some conflicting statements by different Indonesian officials over the legality or illegality of that Sunday flight.

        It appears that the airport guy says legal but the Directorate General of Air Transport says illegal. It appears that the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, so who hasthe ultimate authority on this question.

        My Indonesian is not that good. Perhaps you or someone else can clarify what these two articles say.

        ================================================
        Ralat Pernyataan, Otoritas Bandara Juanda Sebut Penerbangan AirAsia pada Minggu Ilegal

        Senin, 5 Januari 2015 | 17:24 WIB

        JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com

  4. Sdr. Wee,

    My Indonesian is notall that good but report suggests something not quite nice for AirAsia is brewing on the insurance front.

    What do you make of this report in Kompas?

    =============================================

    OJK Panggil Asuransi yang Bayar Klaim Korban AirAsia
    Senin, 5 Januari 2015 | 13:09 WIB

    JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) mengaku telah memanggil perusahaan asuransi yang berkewajiban membayar klaim kepada ahli waris korban jatuhnya pesawat AirAsia QZ 8501 rute Surabaya-Singapura.

    Hal tersebut dilakukan OJK, guna memastikan tidak adanya pelanggaran dalam proses pembayaran klaim asuransi.

    “Jadi saya sudah kumpulkan, ditanyakan, masalahnya, kapan bisa dibayar klaim (kepada ahli waris),” kata Kepala Esekutif Pengawas Industri Keuangan Non Bank, Firdaus Djaelani di kantor OJK, Jakarta, Senin (5/1/2015).

    Menurut Firdaus, pada dasarnya perusahaan asuransi yang memiliki tanggung jawab pembayaran klaim sudah menyatakan kesiapannya. Namun, tentunya pembayaran klaim asuransi perlu menunggu proses evakuasi para korban dinyatakan selesai oleh pemerintah.

    “Jangan sampai salah bayar, kita koordinasi juga dengan Pemda, untuk memastikan ahliwarisnya. Nanti kita akan bikin upacara misalnya di Surabaya, nanti kita lakukan pembayaran,” tuturnya.

    Sementara mengenai nilai asuransi yang akan didapat oleh ahli waris, Firdaus tidak dapat mengatakan saat ini karena proses belum dinyatakan selesai. “Nanti kita jelaskan, udah ada aturannya,” ucap Firdaus. (Seno Tri Sulistiyono)

    http://bisniskeuangan.kompas.com/read/2015/01/05/130907026/OJK.Panggil.Asuransi.yang.Bayar.Klaim.Korban.AirAsia

  5. AirAsia cannot survive in well in countries that are strict with rules. It will fly with the type of Pak Lah. Safety is not its priority because it cost a lot of money. If AirAsia is not prepared to pay 20 Sen per passengers for the use of aerobridges then few hundred thousand USD per C Check and other maintenance will be a big issue in AirAsia.

    If you want to fly AirAsia just remember the famous quote of Tony Fernandes: “If you price the fare low enough, Malaysians are prepared to risk their lives.”

  6. As other readers have said, if Tony has the letter of approval for flying on Sunday, he would have called a press conference showing the letter and bragged about it. It has been a few days and he is still tweeting other irrelevant matters to distract attention from this issue. This is a clear indication that there is no permit for AirAsia to fly on Sunday.

    Indonesian Authorities must come down hard on Tony/AirAsia because over 160 innocent have been lost due to an irresponsible airline. There must be prosecution against the culprits after the investigations.

    Malaysia DCA must take note of what had happened to QZ 8501. If there is a reason to withdraw the AOC, please don’t be sacred to withdraw it before more innocent lives are lost.

    This is the beginning of the end for Tony and his outfit.

  7. @IT, regarding the first two reports with different timestamps, it is apparent that the Coordinator/chief whatever in charge at Juanda is clarifying himself. The first report timestamped 13.59 Western Indonesian Time (WIB) states that the flight was legal as all applications had been submitted and approved within the specific time frame. Apparently when the season switches to winter, a different schedule operates over there and AA managed to squeeze in the request by submitting the relevant paperwork.

    Having issued the first statement and probably being unable to provide proof or reprimanded by the DG, the same individual then issued a clarification on 17 24 WIB (Western Indonesian Time) denying that the flight was legal and investigations are still ongoing. Maybe he shot off his hip too fast to his superiors liking and had to backtrack.

    Regarding the third news item, it clearly states that the insurance agencies are prepared to assume liability subject to complete retrieval of the corpses by the authorities. Whether this claim, which by the way dovetails the Juanda Airport boss’ earlier statement (13 59hrs WIB), still holds true after the subsequent retraction and clarification at 17 24 WIB is now, in my opinion, highly doubtful.

    I suspect if the flight is indeed deemed illegal, the insurance agencies have the liberty to “abscond”. But having said that, it is ironic that the insurers might actually be Tune Insurance,in which Tony divested his stake just a couple of weeks ago.

    http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/577770/20150102/questions-arise-over-dumping-ceo-tony-fernandes.htm

    Thanks for the links anyway and as usual you are right on the button, keeping tabs on this. By the way,those asinine commenters at Bloomberg would be signing a different tune if they had been directly impacted.

    Not relevant but some points in here are still applicable, i suppose, when we talk about asinine commenting:

    http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/comments/maynard20150103

    • Thanks.

      Perhaps the insurer could be Tune Insurance but I read somewhere else it could be Allianz.

      From its website, it does not look like Tune Insurance would cover loss of the aircraft and its crew, though it would provide coverage for passengers who purchased Tune policies.

  8. The route permit allows the airports/government to generate revenue from the airlines and to keep the airports from becoming overly congested – basically it forces the airlines to schedule flights according to their permits and not at their whim. If they are scheduling flights outside their permitted use the airport and the aviation admin will reject that scheduled flight.

    Again these are commercial flights. They are scheduled well in advance. On the scheduled day of departure, everything is logged, the flight plan, payload, amount of fuel, and a passenger manifest.

    In the end if it was an issue then the flight, which has a TAIL NUMBER, wouldn’t have been granted to back out of the gate let alone given the clearance to taxi to a runway and then cleared again to take off.

  9. Where was the Indonesian government and Airport Tower who allowed them to take off. Sorry but that flight had been scheduled for weeks.

    Question for you, what if the accident happened a few days before the ROUTE permit expired? What then?

    Also you have the Indonesian government saying it was expired and the Singapore government saying it wasn’t.

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