AirAsia CEO eyes overseas citizen card |
In a bid to address allegations that AirAsia India is a `foreign-controlled` airline, the founder and CEO of Malaysian low-cost airline AirAsia Berhad, Tony Fernandes, said he applied for an OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) card last week. Fernandes is a Malaysian but his father hails from India, making him eligible for an OCI card. The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), which has members such as SpiceJet, Jet Airways and GoAir, had claimed that both Vistara and AirAsia India (both of which have Tata Sons as a stakeholder) are foreign-controlled. "This whole `foreign` thing is a bizarre one . Naresh Goyal (founder of Jet Airways) lives in London and is an NRI, SpiceJet used to be owned by an American, IndiGo has tonnes of American shareholders and in fact there is more foreign shareholding than local shareholding in that company. GoAir (top honcho) lives in Turkey on a boat... so they are all NRIs. But what is important is they are creating jobs in India, bringing investments in India as well as creating tourism in India. According to Indian laws, a foreign company can have up to 49% stake in an airline but an NRI is allowed to hold 100% stake.Meanwhile, the AirAsia chief also said that the airline is excited about the domestic market in India.
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