Capital A Chief Executive Officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes aims to create more jobs for Filipinos as part of AirAsia Philippines’ short and long-term plans.
“I am excited to put in more investments in the Philippines. We have a great logistics business coming—Teleport Philippines, which we think will be great for e-commerce providers in the Philippines to sell their goods all over.” Mr. Fernandes shared.
He continued, “We want to build an engineering company here, on top of Lufthansa Technik’s. We would like to bring ADE, which is really a fantastic engineering company.” Asia Digital Engineering (ADE) is the engineering arm of Capital A, providing heavy maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services for the group’s commercial aircraft.
As part of its post-pandemic recovery strategy, the airline, which continues to receive accolades from various consumer-ratings organizations, is planning some major changes across its Philippine operations. In addition to a stronger focus on enabling local e-commerce and setting up engineering operations in the Philippines, the airline also plans on increasing its Philippine fleet to sustain route expansion both domestically and internationally.
“Leisure, migration workforce, and SME travel currently comprise pent-up demand for air travel. 80% of AirAsia’s South-East Asia traffic consists of shorter trips and low-cost travel. With this, we’d like to further connect the Philippines to other ASEAN destinations,” Mr. Fernandes added.
To set the pace for major developments, recruitment will also be a priority in the next few months. Mr. Fernandes is anticipating hiring an additional 1,000 employees to support the AirAsia Philippines’ expansion in the next three years on top of the 6,000 jobs expected to benefit from the introduction of Capital A’s ride-hailing business in the Philippines.
“My priorities were to survive, to bring back people, and recruit more people. Our biggest asset actually is people. People are smart here, people are hard-working, and they have a wonderful personality. So for us, we will grow all four lines of Capital A in the Philippines,” he furthered.
Last week, the World’s Best-Low Cost Airline opened its doors for cabin crew hopefuls. Another leg of the cabin crew recruitment will happen on 26 June 2023 to complete the need for additional cabin crew for Q3 2023.
