Was he endorsing his rival or crowing about his own success?

Social media has been abuzz with the question after AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes said he had to travel on Singapore Airlines (SIA) because seats on his own planes were sold out.

“No seat on @flyairasia for three flights so had to take @singaporeair. Hehehe,” Mr Fernandes said in an Instagram post on Dec 5, which has close to 7,000 likes.

The 59-year-old Malaysian entrepreneur also posted a photo of his seat on Flight SQ113 from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.

Netizens left a mix of compliments and snide remarks on his post.

An Instagram user said: “It is so refreshing to see the CEO of a private airline respect his customer bookings and not find a ‘corporate’ method to shuffle some passengers around and instead fly a different airline altogether.”

Another wrote: “This is why AirAsia is successful. Even (the) CEO has no space.”

But some netizens did not buy his story.

“Don’t lie Tony. Even you don’t wanna fly AirAsia,” one user quipped.

Another wrote: “You had to take @singaporeair because of the seat quality (of) your own company.”

In October, Mr Fernandes faced a public backlash after posting on LinkedIn a picture of himself shirtless, receiving a massage as he chaired a videoconference in the office.

He deleted the picture on the same day.