First of 353 Airbus A321neos Enters Service with AirAsia

The first of 353 Airbus A321neos on order by the AirAsia Group has entered service.

The A321neos will eventually replace AirAsia’s existing fleet of A320 and A320neo aircraft throughout the network covering Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, India and Japan.

With 236 seats - a 27% increase in capacity compared to AirAsia’s present fleet of A320 (180 seats) and A320neo (186 seats) - the A321neo will help AirAsia to reduce fuel costs by about 10% whilst increasing the number of seats it can sell on each flight. The Airbus A321neo can also fly further as it has a range of 7,400 km, compared to the 6,300 km of the Airbus A320.

AirAsia will initially operate the aircraft, registration number 9M-VAA, from its Kuala Lumpur hub to cities across Asia, with the first destinations including Kuching, Kota Kinabalu, Singapore, Bangkok and Shenzhen.

AirAsia Group CEO Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said, “We are proud to welcome our first A321neo as the backbone of our future operations. This new aircraft will be deployed on popular routes delivering growth opportunities to new markets and add extra capacity in existing markets, particularly where there are expansion constraints due to infrastructure or slot availability limitations. Last year AirAsia flew over 90 million guests and now, with significantly improved operational efficiencies and 50 more seats per aircraft, AirAsia can look forward to flying even more people for less. As our cost is reduced we can pass on any savings to our guests in the form of even lower airfares. The new generation state-of-the-art aircraft will allow AirAsia to further boost air connectivity to and from Malaysia ahead of Visit Malaysia 2020, at the same time deliver greater opportunities for tourism, business and trade in line with the government’s Shared Prosperity Vision 2030.”

Earlier this year, AirAsia converted 253 orders for the A320neo to the larger A321neo version, with a total of 353 aircraft on order, making AirAsia one of the world’s largest customer for the A321neo.

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