KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia X Bhd’s number of passengers carried during the fourth quarter of 2019 (4Q19) increased 8% to 1.61 million passengers from the same period last year.
While seat capacity was up by 4% year-on-year (yoy) to 1.99 million during the quarter, available seats per kilometre (ASK) capacity increased marginally by 1% to 9.21 million on the back of a shorter stage length following the network realignment exercise.
“AirAsia X Malaysia charted a healthy passenger load factor (PLF) of 81% in 4Q19, which was three percentage points higher than the PLF recorded during the same period last year,” the airline said in a statement today.
It said during the quarter under review, flight frequencies to Bali, Taipei, Seoul, Perth, Sydney and the Gold Coast were increased, especially in December, to cater to the high demand from the year-end peak travel season.
AirAsia X Malaysia launched two new routes in November 2019: Kuala Lumpur-Singapore was launched with 14 times weekly frequency, while Kuala Lumpur-Tokyo (Narita) commenced on top of the existing Kuala Lumpur-Tokyo (Haneda) services.
As at Dec 31, 2019, the fleet size of AirAsia X Malaysia stands at 24 A330s.
On a full-year basis, AirAsia X Malaysia carried 6.07 million passengers, 2% lower yoy in line with the drop in seat and ASK capacity at 2% and 3% yoy respectively, on the back of the network optimisation exercise and the subsequent route realignment.
“In 2019, AirAsia X Malaysia introduced five new routes from Kuala Lumpur: Fukuoka, Lanzhou, Taipei-Osaka, Tokyo (Narita) and Singapore,” it said.
Meanwhile, AirAsia X Thailand carried a total of 2.6 million passengers in 2019, surging by 29% yoy, while ASK capacity was up by 41% to 14.47 million, driven by fleet expansion that led to the new routes launched from Bangkok in 2019 to Brisbane, Shenyang, Tianjin and Fukuoka.
AirAsia X Thailand added four A330s throughout 2019, while the total fleet size for AirAsia X Group is 39 Airbus A330s as at end-December 2019, including seven aircraft on direct third-party lease to AirAsia X Thailand and two aircraft leased to AirAsia X Indonesia. – Jan 29, 2020, Bernama
