AIRASIA Aviation Ltd (AAAL), the holding company for the airline group, has announced key strategic and organisational changes as Capital A Bhd’s rapid transformation continues.
Following the recent group holding name change from AirAsia Group Bhd to Capital A, AAAL is to be renamed AirAsia Aviation Group Ltd (AAAGL). The name change reflects the aviation group’s recovery and growth strategy by consolidating all of its airline operations under one entity to focus expansion of the business within the larger ecosystem.
The new airline group entity also announced the setting up of an independent board of directors, including the recent appointment of Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim as independent non-executive chairman to provide fresh perspectives and robust board leadership to support strategic growth of the airline businesses.
Under the new structure, AAAGL will oversee all airlines in Capital A as well as related international support functions including AirAsia Consulting, shared corporate services division AirAsia SEA, the Santan food group and the ground handling services joint venture business called GTR.
The formation of a new board of directors for AAAGL comprising all independent directors, (except the Group CEO), will be separate to the board of Capital A. This provides a dedicated focus on the aviation businesses to support sustainable growth including setting up new joint ventures in the future.
The plan is to assemble a balanced mix of industry leading professionals with diverse backgrounds and complementary skills. It is envisaged that the board will comprise some of the best in their respective areas including well-known figures from the various countries it operates in to ensure diversity in nationalities, skills and gender.
“This announcement is much more than just a name change. It signals a strong new beginning for our airline group and supports the rapid expansion of Capital A’s portfolio companies, helping to facilitate strong projected growth in both airline and non-airline companies,” CEO of AAAGL Bo Lingam pointed out.
“AAAGL now holds our existing airline investments and paves the way for new airline ventures to be formed in due course.”
At the end of the day, the rationale for these structural changes is to provide a separate, robust and lean platform for the airline operations supporting Capital A’s continued focus to become more than just an airline, according to Bo.
“AAAGL will become one of the key pillars under Capital A alongside the new digital businesses and aircraft engineering company – Asia Digital Engineering (ADE) – which is also preparing to announce a new board of directors in the near future as a separate entity to AAAGL,” he justified.
At 2.53pm, Capital A was up 0.5 sen or 0.75% to 67 sen with 12.54 million shares traded, thus valuing the company at RM2.78 bil. – Feb 11, 2022
