It is interesting to follow the price war between Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia. The re-emergence of AirAsia from a 'charity and political' organisation under DRB-Hicom wing into a business oriented organisation has opened a lot of eyes, both in the public and private sectors.

It has been proven that Malaysians were misled by inaccurate information on the domestic pricing structure. Over the years, the standard explanation for any justification to raise domestic airfares was that 'domestic operations are running at a loss, subsidised by international operations'.

The Ministry of Transport had no choice but to approve any domestic fare increase as requested.

The government was even more obliged to accommodate the request especially when it came from none other than Tajudin Ramli himself. Malaysians, who had no alternative but to fly with MAS, had to pay for the political business decision

When AirAsia started to offer no-frill airfares giving travelers rock-bottom discounts, MAS started to react. Relatively good discounts were offered. Does this mean domestic operations had to incur more losses?

Or, does it mean that MAS managed to generate more international businesses from the connecting of local routes?

Has it been a policy change to lose RM1 for local routes but recover RM5 for international routes generated by a traveller from Kota Bahru transiting in KLIA en route to Madrid?

As reported in the media, Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy expressed his concern over an unnecessary rivalry between MAS and AirAsia. Does this show that Chan is more prudent than his predecessor who agreed to any request put forward by MAS at that time?

Every Malaysian hopes that Chan can transform the airline industry into a more affordable one.