Capital A Berhad, formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad, released its third-quarter results yesterday. These cover the consolidated airlines of AirAsia Malaysia, AirAsia Indonesia and AirAsia Philippines, as well as AirAsia Thailand, which reports separately.
All four airlines combined flew 9.9 million passengers in the July to September quarter, compared to 432,000 for the same quarter last year. The group grew traffic by 36% compared to the second quarter and recorded a load factor of 86%, its highest quarterly load factor since the pandemic arrived, and has now reached 54% of pre-pandemic passenger levels.
AirAsia is coping with surging demand
Photo: Airbus
AirAsia is an excellent example of the challenges airlines faced when borders opened, and pent-up demand for travel erupted. In Q3 last year, the three consolidated airlines carried just 352,000 passengers on 2,876 flights, using an operating fleet of 20 aircraft. This year in Q3, the consolidated airlines carried 7.12 million passengers on 44,876 flights, with an average stage length of 1022 kilometers (635 miles), using 68 aircraft.
Looking at the four group airlines, AirAsia Malaysia is the powerhouse carrying 4.85 million, or 48% of the total traffic. AirAsia Thailand was next with 2.76 million, followed by AA Philippines with 1.22 million and AA Indonesia at 1.07. By the end of Q3, the group was operating 103 aircraft, all either Airbus A320ceo/neo or A321neo aircraft.
The group has plenty of capacity in reserve, with ch-aviation.com data for October 28th showing the total fleets comprise:
- AA Malaysia: 69 Airbus A320-200, 29 A320-200neo, two A321-200neo and two A330-300, one of which is wet-leased
- AA Indonesia: 25 Airbus A320-200.
- AA Philippines: 26 Airbus A320-200.
- AA Thailand: 42 Airbus A320-200, 10 A320-200neo and two A321-200neo.
KUL-SIN route paying off well for AirAsia
Photo: AirAsia
AA Malaysia’s load factor for Q3 2022 was 86%, up from 61% last year, and it recalled 35 aircraft to meet the increased demand for domestic and international services. With the return of more international routes, that load factor reached 84%, while domestic was even stronger at 88%.
During the quarter, AA Malaysia operated 177 routes to 57 destinations, with 41 being on international services. Previously holding the title of the world’s busiest airline route, Kuala Lumpur to Singapore performed excellently for AA Malaysia, achieving an impressive 95% load factor for Q3.
Rightsizing is keeping load factors high
Photo: Airbus
The other two consolidated airlines, AA Indonesia and AA Philippines returned equally impressive results and dramatic gains over Q3 2021. Capacity is well managed as the traffic returns, with all three consolidated airlines achieving strong load factors for domestic and international flights.
AA Indonesia went from operating three aircraft on 216 flights last year to twelve aircraft on 7,267 flights, with AA Philippines going from five planes and 1,306 sectors in Q3 2021 to 7,647 flights using nine aircraft this year. AA Thailand did much the same, although with bigger numbers, by operating 17,269 flights compared to 770 last year.
Capital A also reports on its digital businesses, which include AirAsia Super App, BigPay and Teleport. Super App had 9.5 million average monthly active users, a 161% increase to Q3 2021, mainly due to flight and hotel bookings and a 5 million FREE SEAT sale in the quarter.
BigPay’s carded users also grew strongly in Q3, spurred on by new products, 35 new remittance corridors across Europe and the UK and personal loan offerings. The Teleport logistics business benefitted from the increased belly capacity as aircraft returned, delivering more than 2.7 million orders in Q3.
Are you seeing AirAsia flights returning, and is the airline coping well with the rising demand?
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AirAsia
- IATA/ICAO Code:
- AK/AXM
- Airline Type:
- Low-Cost Carrier
- Year Founded:
- 1993
- CEO:
- Riad Asmat
- Country:
- Malaysia
Source: simpleflying.com
