The airline’s sales volume, as measured by the industry jargon, revenue passenger kilometres, which rose 10% to 12.81 billion from 11.67 billion a year earlier.
Load factor, which measures the number of seats filled against total capacity, slipped one percentage point (ppt) to 79%, amid a 15% rise in number of seats available and a drop in performance by its Thai unit. AirAsia took delivery of nine new aircraft during the quarter.
Thai AirAsia’s load factor dropped by 4 ppts to 78% primarily due to the political instability that eventually led to a slowdown in inbound tourists, the airline operator said in a statement yesterday.
Indonesia AirAsia’s load factor was also 78%, down 1 ppt from a year ago partially due to the high competition and challenging operating environment in the archipelago, an analyst opined.
AirAsia noted: “In the first half of 2014, Malaysia AirAsia underwent a route rationalisation programme whereby each route is reassessed to ensure we optimise profitability and utilisation focusing on routes with high passenger demand.
“This is also on the back of a more rational market as competitors too are scaling down capacity.” During the quarter, its local unit introduced four new routes, increased frequencies on five routes, terminated one route and scaled down three existing routes.
The Philippines operation was AirAsia’s only arm that recorded a positive growth in load factor, gaining 3 ppts from 74% to 77% in one year. Coming from a low base, Philippines AirAsia’s number of passengers carried surged 560% year-on-year to 920,000 while growth in capacity rose 534%.
In one year, AirAsia added 45 aircraft, of which, 14 went to Malaysia AirAsia, eight to Thailand Air Asia and six to Indonesia AirAsia. During the April-June period, the group added eight aircraft for Malaysia AirAsia and one for the Philippines operations, bringing its total fleet size to 166. AirAsia India has another aircraft.
It said Philippines AirAsia also received 17 additional aircraft year-on-year, a significant increase due to the acquisition of Zest Air.
Meanwhile, AirAsia X Bhd flew 1.02 million passengers in the second quarter of 2014, up 46% from 700,000 in the corresponding period last year.
It said in a separate statement that the positive figures helped AirAsia X maintain its position as the market leader in terms of passengers carried in Australia and North Asia.
It also said AirAsia X’s planned capacity expansion continued with a 47% year-on-year growth in available seat kilometres to 6.265 billion.
Source: The Star Online | 6 August 2014
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