TONY Fernandes today apologised to Malaysians for his video before GE14, which many saw as openly supporting the Najib Razak administration, saying it was a grave error in judgment.

The AirAsia Group CEO said he “foolishly” thought the video would appease the previous government as he had been pressured by the former prime minister’s office to remove AirAsia X chairman Rafidah Aziz, who was campaigning for Pakatan Harapan.

“I was asked to remove her as chairman of AirAsia X. I refused to do so because I thought it was not the right thing to do.

“And I came under intense pressure day by day as Rafidah became more and more involved in the campaign.

“As Rafidah’s impact and popularity grew, the pressure on me grew too. It was getting harder and harder to resist the pressure from the prime minister’s office,” Fernandes said in a video posted on his Facebook page.

Fernandes, however, said he stood firm and did not call on Rafidah to step down from the AirAsia X board.

The AirAsia chief said he also came under tremendous pressure when the airline put out 120 extra flights to ferry 26,000 voters home to vote.

Within 24 hours of that announcement, AirAsia was summoned by the Malaysian Aviation Commission to cancel the flights.

“I knew it was not a popular move with the government but as an airline we had to serve the people,” he said.

This, he said, was the second point which led to the video, which he thought would appease the government.

“It was a grave error in judgment,” he said. – May 13, 2018.

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