Aviation is for the common man. My goal is to enable everyone to fly. It shouldn't be only for the rich.
Good leadership is to know when to go, and you only succeed as a good leader if you've transported someone else in and the company gets stronger. Then you've succeeded as leader.
When I started my airline business, I didn't know everything, right? If I start up a newspaper tomorrow, I might get ripped off by journalists. You'd be naive to think you know everything from day one.
The music and airlines businesses are tough, but I've been successful in them.
Passion is just something that comes naturally to me.
I'm not cynical or bitter in any way. Life's too short; you get ripped off, but if you hold a grudge, it's going to affect you. You take it on the chin, you learn, you try not to make the same mistakes.
I think airlines have been very much parrots. They'll just follow what everyone else is doing. Why change a model that they're happy in? And it takes someone like myself or Richard Branson who comes from outside the industry to say, 'Hey, let's try something new.'
In AirAsia, we consider ourselves basically a dream factory. We deliberately decided that we wanted a company where people can pursue their passion, and we wanted to make use of all the talent that we have in-house.