AirAsia to focus on growth, push down cost

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Bhd will continue focusing on growth, while bringing down cost, Group Chief Executive Officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said today.

He said the low cost carrier would also emphasise higher utilisation of its fleet.

“Growth, growth, growth. That’s what we are focusing on in the Airasia group, and it will be profitable growth, as investment done.

“On top of growth we are pushing down costs, especially with our peers.

Higher utilisation. New aircraft. More seats. Data and technology,” added Fernandes, via his official twitter handle today.

Airasia Bhd reported a higher pre-tax profit of RM2.16bil for its financial year ended Dec 31, 2016 from RM215.15mil in 2015.

Revenue rose to RM6.92bil from RM6.29bil.

The airline attributed the better revenue performance to passenger growth, higher ancillary income per passenger year-on-year and an increase in average fares, which rose 6% to RM167.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Aviation (CAPA) quoted AirAsia’s Group Head of Strategy, Subashini Silvadas as saying that Malaysia AirAsia could end up growing fleet more than the eight A320s currently planned.

“The group now plans to reach 300 A320s by 2021 and 333 aircraft by 2022 compared with 176 at end-2016,” it said, in quoting Subashini from the ongoing CAPA Airline Fleet and Finance Summit 2017 in Singapore.

She had also said that the group had secured 10 A320ceo leases of the now 13 planned for 2017.

She was also quoted as saying that AirAsia Japan would launch services “soon” and end 2017 with five A320s.

According to Subashini, AirAsia Japan can’t take the Airbus Neo due to Japanese regulations. - Bernama