Positive Q3 2011 for AirAsia X

AirAsia X, the long haul low cost affiliate of AirAsia, has reported strong growth in Q3 2011, carrying 0.62 million passengers, an increase of 21.3% over the same quarter in 2010.

In terms of passenger traffic, AirAsia X grew by 27.2% to 3.6 billion Revenue-Passenger-Kms (RPKs) for Q3-2011, achieving similar levels in the earlier two quarters. Capacity grew by 17% to 4.5 billion Available Seat-Kms (ASKs), resulting in a load factor of 80%. This represents an increase of 6 percentage-points from the same quarter in 2010, where it registered a load factor of 74%.

For the 9-months Year-to-date, AirAsia X has carried 1.9 million passengers, up 42.6% from the previous year’s corresponding period, and a higher load factor of 80%, up 5 percentage-points from the previous year. This brings total passenger traffic to 10.6 billion RPKs and 13.3 billion ASKs, a growth of 46.8% and 37.2% year-on-year respectively.

Cargo operations continue to be strong, with AirAsia X carrying 9,220 tons of freight in Q3-2011, registering a 33.2% growth from a year ago. Cargo load factor stands at 69% while its Flown-as-Booked ratio has reached an industry-leading level of 93%.

 Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X, said, “In addition to our continued unit cost industry-leadership, AirAsia X has focused on achieving superior on-time performance reliability for our flights, registering an on-time rate of 89% flights departing within 15 minutes of schedule, for both Q3-2011 and 2011 year-to-date. This proves that even though we are a low cost carrier, we do not compromise on reliability.”

Currently, AirAsia X’s aircraft fleet remains at 9 Airbus A330s and 2 Airbus A340 with an order of 3 new A330-200s scheduled for delivery in 2012. This new aircraft purchase will replace the A340 used for flights into Europe and is expected to help increase fuel efficiency.

AirAsia X is expecting further growth in the final quarter of 2011, as it will be launching its flights to Osaka, Japan from 30 November, as well as additional flights to Australia and Taiwan during the peak December period.

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