AirAsia X Berhad (“AirAsia X” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce its operating statistics for the Fourth Quarter of 2019 (“4Q19”) and the Full Financial Year Ended 31 December 2019 (“FY2019” or “2019”) today. 

The total number of passengers carried during the quarter under review stands at 1,614,764 passengers, an increase of 8% year-on-year (“YoY”) from the same period last year. While seat capacity was up by 4% YoY to 1,994,635 during the quarter, Available Seats per Kilometre (“ASK”) capacity increased marginally by 1% to 9,211 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 3 percentage points (“ppts”) higher than the PLF recorded during the same period last year. 

During the quarter under review, flight frequencies to Bali, Taipei, Seoul, Perth, Sydney and the Gold Coast were increased, especially in December, to cater for 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 existing Kuala Lumpur-Tokyo (Haneda) services. These new routes will increase the aircraft utilisation rate. The fleet size of AirAsia X Malaysia stands at 24 A330s as at the end of 31 December 2019. 

In 4Q19, AirAsia X Thailand’s total number of passengers carried surged by 40% YoY to 744,414 passengers, as ASK capacity grew by 43% YoY to 4,080 million due to the addition of new routes in the first and second quarters of 2019 and expansion of its fleet size throughout the year of 2019. Its PLF softened by 1 ppt YoY to 83% during the quarter, on the back of aggressive fleet and network expansion. The fleet size of AirAsia X Thailand increased to 13 A330s as at the end of December 2019 following the delivery of 1 A330-300 aircraft on direct third-party lease in December 2019. 

On a full-year basis, AirAsia X Malaysia charted a total number of 6,071,019 passengers carried, 2% lower YoY in-line with the drop in seat and ASK capacity at 2% and 3% YoY respectively. This came on the back of the network optimisation exercise and the subsequent route realignment. In 2019, AirAsia X Malaysia introduced 5 new routes from Kuala Lumpur; Fukuoka, Lanzhou, Taipei-Osaka, Tokyo (Narita) and Singapore. Meanwhile, AirAsia X Thailand carried a total of 2,599,647 passengers in 2019, surging by 29% YoY. ASK capacity was up by 41% to 14,470 million, driven by fleet expansion that led to the new routes launched from Bangkok in 2019; Brisbane, Shenyang, Tianjin, and Fukuoka. AirAsia X Thailand added four A330s throughout 2019.

The total fleet size for AirAsia X Group is 39 Airbus A330s as at end December 2019, including 7 aircraft on direct third-party lease to AirAsia X Thailand and two aircraft leased to AirAsia X Indonesia. 

(1)          Number of earned seats flown. Earned seats comprise seats sold to passengers (including no-shows) and seats provided for promotional purposes  

(2)          Number of seats flown  

(3)          Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK) / Available Seat Kilometres (ASK)  

(4)          Available Seat Kilometres (ASK) measures an airline’s passenger capacity. Total seats flown multiplied by the number of kilometres flown  

(5)          Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK) is a measure of the volume of passengers carried by the airline. Number of passengers multiplied by the number of kilometres these passengers have flown 

(6) Number of flights flown  

(7)          Fleet distribution for AirAsia X Group includes 24 aircraft for AirAsia X Malaysia, 6 aircraft for AirAsia X Thailand (excluding 7 aircraft which are on direct third-party lease to AirAsia X Thailand) and 2 aircraft for AirAsia X Indonesia