PETALING JAYA: AirAsia group chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes has expressed his dismay after several engineering officers of AirAsiaX publicly expressed frustration over the carrier's safety policy.

He said for 17 years the AirAsia group had generally kept their frustrations inside the company and sorted things out.

"My heart is sad today. Poison pen letters have no place in our culture. Sad day for me. Very sad," he said in a Facebook posting.

He said their actions were wrong, AirAsia Group is an open and fair company that treats everyone equally.

He said the actions by the AirAsia X staff had let down 22,000 all stars.

The open letter penned by some AirAsiaX staff said there was a serious breach of aviation regulations by AAX top management.

They said their intention was to avoid a mishap as the the latest aviation disaster involving Lion Air JT610.

They had written the open letter to Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, Fernandez, Datuk Kamarudin Meranun and The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) urging them to take action.

They alleged there were two serious misconducts committed by a department head which warranted immediate corrective action since it involves the safety of passengers.

"These misconducts happened quite some time but we are not very sure why there is no investigation being done.

"Does it mean we who work on the ground are dispensable and all the management personnel have special immunity no matter how serious their misconduct," they said.

They said for Case One the evidence given was as attached in the email and there is no reason not to start an investigation.

They added "please do not use the excuse: we have not received any official complaint", not to start the investigation.

"Once the investigation is completed, do not then say the person involved committed the misconduct in good faith or his intention was to help the company as we are pretty sure that most our fellow colleagues who had been penalised before for their misconduct had also the good intention to help the company when they committed the offence," read the letter.

They said for Case Two, the evidence needed can be retrieved from the relevant department.

"There are two standards of treatment being practised by the company, one is the treatment for the low level Allstars and another one is for the Allstars with a high position or those with big cable.

"Are these people immune from disciplinary action even though they had committed a serious misconduct that involves people's lives," they asked.

They urged CAAM to look into this case as they were afraid it may become a norm for engineers to violate procedures and safety as long as it "helps" the boss.