Airasia X has been the fastest growing low cost airline in the world, an envy of the industry and the pride of the nation. Airasia X is one of the few Malaysian companies that have achieved multinational status with branches in Malaysia, Vietnam, Philipines and Thailand. On Monday, 21st March Young Corporate Malaysians organized a talk with Azran Osman Rani, the CEO of Airasia X. The talk took place at InterContinental Hotel (formally known as Nikko Hotel) at 8pm.

Commence operations in 2007, Airasia X currently has a large number routes from KL-London (west) to KL-Christchurch(east). Personally, I don’t know much about Azman Osman Rani apart from the fact that he is the CEO of Airasia. But I guess judging from his character, he would rather be know for his work, and this just highlights the fact.

Upon first introduction, it is evident that he is not a typical Malaysian CEO. If you went to the CEO series with the CEO of 8tv recently, you would notice some similarities, particularly the out of the box thinking that goes into building the companies working culture.

Azran mentioned how the free flow of information among all levels of staff was important in maintaining outstanding results, whether it is sales, safety or even inter-staff relationships. Everyone from engineers, sales, pilots and management worked within the same office area and mingled around, creating a culture of equality and fostering a strong teamwork attitude.

However, there are a lot of interesting points presented by Azran about Airasia X which was very interesting, particularly about the efficiency of the aircraft utilization. With a cost of 2.3 US cents per available seat per customer per kilometre and a fuel consumption of 2.9 litres of fuel used per 100km per available seat, it is on of the most efficient airline in the world with an average aircraft utilization of about 75% compared to 50% for the average airline. This means if the flight was full, each passenger would be using less fuel than a Perodua Kancil uses per 100km and it will cost cheaper per kilometre than a taxi.

Perhaps the biggest point Azran wanted to say was, not to plan long term, it is a waste of time. We live in days of uncertainty. One day its fine, the other day there’s an earthquake, then wars, then oil prices go up and so on and so fourth. So, making plans is actually a handicap. Most important is to be able to adapt and react to the current situation faster than the competition. I guess, that’s how you run Airasia X – the Azran way.