AirAsia wins Airline Strategy Award - Finance Category

AirAsia has won the Airline Strategy Award in the Finance Category. The ceremony was held at The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn in London recently.

The Airline Strategy Awards, organized by Airline Business, is an annual occasion of recognizing the achievements of aviation entities in 8 categories: Executive Leadership, Low Cost Leadership, Regional Leadership, Finance, Marketing, Operations, Technology and The Airline Business Award.

Potential winners are carefully scrutinized by distinguished judges who are experts in their respective fields. Sitting on the judging panel were Mark Pilling (Editor, Airline Business), Sir Rod Eddington (transport policy expert), Jeffrey Katz (member of the Board of Directors, Northwest Airlines), Professor Rigas Doganis (author, The Airline Business), Peter Harbison (Managing Director, CAPA), Dr Julius Maldutis (transportation economist), Chris Tarry (aviation  analyst), Micheal Bell (global aviation specialist) and Thierry Lindenau (global aviation specialist).

On hand to receive the Finance category award, AirAsia Regional Head of Finance, Rozman Omar said, “Our success comes from good planning of resources. The lowest cost structure of AirAsia enables it to be and remain a highly profitable airline. To achieve this, we utilize the newest fleet of aircraft which provides us with better fuel management. The A320’s that we use gives better unit fuel consumption per flight and its operational efficiency involves lower maintenance expenditures, which is cost savings for us. We also have a competitive maintenance program for our fleets, which knocks the costs down even further. We see this as a benefit to our guests, as all the savings are passed down as low fares”

“Similar with other airlines, fuel is undoubtedly the single largest variable cost. However, instead of dropping routes and reducing frequencies to cut costs, we create routes or add more frequencies. This may be illogical to many, but the higher frequency enables us to substantially reduce the unit overheads cost. Therefore, overall operating costs will remain low to enable us to offer the lowest fares throughout our vast route network. Besides, there will always be demand for air travel whatever the fuel price is. Furthermore, we believe our continuous low fare offerings with our aggressive marketing campaigns and innovative efforts in introducing new products and services will capture the demand for air travel further,” Rozman added.

Six and a half years of flying, continuing growth and profits in every quarter since day one resulted in AirAsia coming out tops in the Airline Strategy Awards’ finance category this year for “delivering outstanding financial results and industry-leading profit margins while bringing low-fare airline service to Southeast Asia”.

Editor of Airline Business, Mark Pilling said, “The 2008 Airline Strategy Awards have once again recognised the best this industry has to offer in management and leadership talent. Now in their seventh year, the Awards have quickly become a highly sought-after and respected badge of honour among the industry elite.”

See other recent news regarding: Travel News Asia, Promotions, New Hotels, AirAsia, Awards, AirAsia X