Tony Fernandes

Tony Fernandes (born 30 April 1964 in Kuala Lumpur) is a Malaysian entrepreneur who bought the failing, government-owned AirAsia in 2001 for one ringgit and turned it into Asia's leading budget airline, after an executive career at Warner Music; he founded the Tune Group, and owned the Caterham Formula One team and Queens Park Rangers football club, the latter until 2023. ^{1 2}

Fernandes was born in Kuala Lumpur on 30 April 1964. ^{1 2} His father, originally from Goa in India, was a doctor; his mother Ena Fernandez, of Malayali and Kristang (Portuguese-Asian) descent, was raised in Malacca and pioneered Tupperware direct marketing in Malaysia. ¹ He was educated at the Alice Smith School in Kuala Lumpur and, from the age of twelve, at Epsom College boarding school in England, then took an accounting degree at the London School of Economics. ¹ He married Chloe Kim in 2017; he has three children. ¹

Fernandes worked briefly as an auditor with Virgin Atlantic and as financial controller for Virgin Communications in London from 1987 to 1989, then joined Warner Music, becoming its Vice President for ASEAN in South East Asia from December 1999 to July 2001. ¹ When the Time Warner–AOL merger was announced he left to pursue a budget airline: in 2001, advised by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to buy an existing carrier rather than start one, he mortgaged his home and acquired AirAsia — then a heavily indebted government-owned subsidiary with two Boeing 737-300s and US$11 million of debt — for one ringgit. ¹ Within a year the airline had broken even and cleared its debts, and its November 2004 IPO was oversubscribed by 130 per cent. ¹ He lobbied successfully for open-skies agreements with Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, and built the Tune Group, including Tune Hotels from 2007. ¹ In February 2020 he stepped aside as AirAsia CEO while Airbus bribery allegations touching sponsorships were probed, and was reinstated a month later after a review cleared the sponsorships, as the article presents it. ¹ Beyond aviation he founded the Caterham Formula One team, which raced as Lotus Racing and Team Lotus in 2010–2011 before its sale in 2014, bought Caterham Cars in 2011, and was majority shareholder and chairman of Queens Park Rangers from August 2011 until he ceased to hold shares in July 2023. ¹ In March 2012 he served on the International Advisory Board of the Global March to Jerusalem, and in 2017 he published his memoir Flying High. ¹

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