Kuala Lampur, Sept. 14 -- Every great dream sounds foolish before it sounds inevitable.

In 2001, Tony Fernandes and Kamarudin Meranun bought AirAsia for RM1. It had two aircraft, about RM40 million in debt and no obvious reason to survive. Tony came from the music business, not aviation. The world was still reeling from September 11. Airlines were retreating, investors were frightened, and the sensible advice would have been to walk away.

The naysayers were there from the beginning. They said a low-cost airline would never work here. Southeast Asia was too fragmented, too regulated and too accustomed to flying being a privilege. Ordinary people, they assumed, did not constitute an aviation market.

AirAsia proved that ordinary people we...