AirAsia opens Jakarta HQ
AirAsia has officially launched its new regional headquarters in Jakarta.
Named AirAsia ASEAN due its location in Jakarta – the home of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the low-cost carrier said the new base would affirm its “commitment to the ASEAN region”. The new office will be home to the company’s Group CEO Tony Fernandes and all non-operational business departments.
“The establishment of the AirAsia ASEAN office in Jakarta as our regional base is to help to more fully deliver on our pledge, ‘Now everyone can fly’, to all the people of Asean and beyond. We are blessed to be located in a part of the world where economic growth is expected to be sustained despite the chilly economic winds blowing through Europe and the United States. Shifting AirAsia’s emphasis to a regional strategy is, we believe, not just good business, but also a move that will keep us ahead of the inevitable competition that is heading our way,” Fernandes said.
AirAsia said the new office would be the “nerve centre” of the group’s regional expansion, as it prepares for the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015, which will include a regional open skies plan.
“AirAsia ASEAN will help ensure that our voice, our concerns and our appeals are heard much more clearly in the corridors of power with ASEAN. One of the reasons for locating the office in Jakarta is to help us engage more closely with the ASEAN Secretariat, which is headquartered here,” Fernandes added.
AirAsia currently operates five regional subsidiaries, four of which are based in ASEAN countries – Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. It was also poised to enter the Vietnam market last year before authorities in the country ruled against its tie-up with VietJet Air.