AirAsia to Open Fast-Food Restaurant Serving Its Inflight Food
Skift Take
Two things about AirAsia that its group CEO Tony Fernandes is most proud of are (gasp) the airline’s inflight food and (clap) that it hires a lot of female pilots. From the creator of the tagline, "Now everyone can fly," soon everyone can eat "sambal" without flying.
The idea of airline food being so delicious that it should be offered on the ground is laughable to most people, but Air Asia Group’s CEO Tony Fernandes is dead serious about opening a fast-food restaurant, likely to be in its home market Malaysia first, that will serve the carrier’s inflight dishes.
“Our food is fantastic. We believe in it so much that we’re going to start a fast-food restaurant out of it. It’s called Santan,” he said on Larry King Now aired last Friday.
Santan means coconut milk in Malay and is a popular ingredient in Malaysian and other Southeast Asian food. It is also the name of AirAsia’s inflight menu, which was launched in 2015.
Skift could not squeeze more details about Santan at present, AirAsia’s spokesperson saying, “We will be making an announcement soon.”
The low-cost carrier
