London with Air Asia X- Part 2

Recently I wrote about my experience flying with Air Asia X from London.

I have informed (Datuk Seri) Tony Fernandes, CEO of the airline Group about my article, who then forwarded to Azran Osman Rani, CEO of Air Asia X. Yes, it's a big loop around. That's because I was not introduced to Azran when I met Tony in London. But I am glad Azran took time to respond to my article.

I received a feedback from Azran and thought it's only fair that anyone who has read my review, to read the response by the airline boss as well (with permission):

Dear Alden,

Thank you for referring your blog article to us. Really appreciate the honest review.

Some points:

On the price of the food - please note that on long-haul flights, we must, as required by quarantine rules, source our food from the UK, for the London-KL portion. We cannot carry meals from KL. As such, the pricing is based on UK catering suppliers - inevitably they are much more expensive than from KL - and unfortunately, we cannot have full control of the food quality, as it is produced in bulk by the UK caterer. Airline food costs are also more than the price of food in a restaurant, because there are extra handling costs, including security scanning, Customs/Quarantine checks, and uploading to the aircraft.

That's why we have to resort to differentiated pricing. Otherwise, if we average out the cost, someone flying to Hong Kong will have to pay a lot more to subsidize the cost of someone buying a meal from London-KL.


We also know our product is not as comparable in quality as Emirates and MAS. We're here to create a different product to tailor for a more affordable price point. Your points on price comparison on the blog is valid, but I'd like to add that, before AirAsia X was introduced, you'd be hard-pressed to get fares on MAS at 500 pounds and on Emirates at 400 pounds. The big boys starting dumping fares only in response to our entry. Without us, customers will have less choice and MAS will undoubtedly increase their fares again. We're determined to stay - they can't keep dumping fares indefinitely because they've been suffering significant losses this year.


Kind regards,

Azran Osman-Rani
Chief Executive Officer

My Line : (603) XXX XXX
My Fax : (603) XXXX XXXX
My Mobile: (60) 12 XXX XXXX

Contact details were omitted to protect his privacy.