AIRASIA Group Bhd CEO Tony Fernandes said the world has to learn to live with the coronavirus as it has with diseases such as influenza, as countries across the globe seal their borders amid a pandemic.

“At some point countries have to take a little bit of risk to reopen as we cannot live in a cave for the rest of our lives,” he said in a Bangkok Post report published yesterday.

“We have to live with this virus as we have with others before like the common cold or dengue,” Fernandes said.

Like carriers across the globe, AirAsia is struggling to stay afloat amid worldwide travel curbs. The low-cost airline reported a record loss in the year’s second quarter and prospects remain bleak as travel demand is not expected to return to pre-Covid levels until 2024 at least, according to the International Air Transport Association,

The group’s long-haul budget carrier, AirAsia X announced last week it had “run out of money” and needed to raise RM500 million to restart operations. 

It also hopes to restructure RM63.5 billion ringgit worth of debt and slash its share capital by 90%. – October 20, 2020.