News
AirAsia plans to return to Adelaide and London
July 22nd 2016
Speaking at last week’s Farnborough Air Show outside London, AirAsia Group CEO, Tony Fernandes, said he hoped his low-cost empire would make a quick return to Adelaide and London, both previously served by its AirAsia X units. Read More »
“Adelaide is somewhere we’ve got to go back to. We need to go to every major city in Australia. Adelaide didn’t work last time, but we’ve got bigger, so we should go back to Adelaide. I think Bali-Adelaide would work,” Fernandes to Australian Aviation.
The charismatic LCC boss also said AirAsia “will” resume service to London once it starts receiving its 55 on-order A330neos from 2018. Fernandes said the neo would allow the budget airline to launch “some sexier destinations”, including Hawaii, Kenya and South Africa and even Latin and South America. “I said I’ll retire when I can play football on Copacabana beach. Then I’ve done everything. People laugh at some of my ideas, but in the end, we should be able to fly to every continent,” he said.
Speaking about potential AirAsia subsidiaries, Fernandes said he hoped to form an AirAsia Vietnam or AirAsia Myanmar because of the opportunities in both markets, but ruled out an Australian offshoot. “You’ve got Tigerair, you’ve got Virgin, although there is no true low-cost carrier. If I put my energy into Australia, to be frank, versus my energy into India or Vietnam or somewhere, the returns are much bigger [outside], because it’s a larger population. Australia is well served by quite a few good airlines, so I don’t see that,” he said.
AirAsia will place 30 of the 100 A321neos it ordered at Farnborough with lessor Asia Aviation Capital. "We welcome the purchase of the A321neo by AirAsia," Asia Aviation Capital principal officer and director, Rozman Omar, said. "The aircraft promises incredible economics and will help grow the leasing company as we continue to build our lease portfolio to AirAsia affiliates and third-party airlines."
