AirAsia chairman joins spat with tourism chief

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Chairman Kamarudin Meranun yesterday reminded Tourism Malaysia Chairman Wee Choo Keong not to forget the economic contributions of the airline to the country.

Kamarudin is the latest AirAsia leader to lambast Wee over an incident at the 4th China International Tourism Expo 2016 in Beijing and Wee’s allegation that the airline had yet to pay RM50 million in airport charges.

Others from AirAsia to have berated Wee include its founder and top boss Tony Fernandes and Chief Executive Officer Aireen Omar.

Kamarudin reminded Wee that the airline was the largest budget carrier in Asia and had 17,000 employees who flew 60 million visitors into the country annually.

The Malay Mail reported Kamarudin as asking on a Facebook post yesterday: “But what on earth are you thinking by putting such a picture… enough is enough and we have done so much for the country. AirAsia, the 17,000 staff and 60 million annual guests don’t deserve to be the scapegoat.”

Accompanying his Facebook post was a picture of a diving AirAsia plane uploaded on Wee’s blog nearly a year ago in June titled “New dog, playing a very old trick”.

Aireen had, in a statement on Monday, said AirAsia had consistently paid its passengers service charge to the airport authorities.

Saying Wee’s allegations were untrue, she added: “We deem these latest statements by Wee Choo Keong as intended to further injure the reputation of AirAsia following his earlier statements which are now already a subject to a defamation litigation.”

According to news reports Wee had allegedly berated his staff for allowing AirAsia buntings in Tourism Malaysia’s pavilion at the Beijing Expo.

Wee was reported to have said at the Beijing expo that he hated AirAsia and had told his staff to throw away the buntings. He had also allegedly physically broken the bunting himself, although Wee denied this was true in an official statement he issued later.

AirAsia filed a suit against Wee last year for allegedly making frequent defamatory statements against it.

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