News
AirAsia X to lease -300ERs for return to London
February 3rd 2017
The Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) this week awarded AirAsia X traffic rights for nine-weekly Kuala Lumpur-London Gatwick flights from June. Read More » The airline is also seeking slots for flights to Paris.
According to a CAPA report, AirAsia X will dry lease a pair of B777-300ERs to launch the strategically important London service, given its A330ceos do not have the range for the route. The first of 66 on-order A330neos, which would have the legs for the distance, will not arrive in Kuala Lumpur until early 2019 after being delayed from 2018.
The B777s are not expected to produce a profit for the carrier mainly because it will be challenging to acquire them in a 10-abreast high-density configuration that is appropriate for AirAsia X’s low-cost business model.
The airline operated to London from 2009 to 2011 and to Paris for a year from 2011, but quickly withdrew from the routes because of high fuel costs, “exorbitant taxes” and lower than forecast demand.
AirAsia X last week received clearance from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to fly to any destination in the U.S. It plans to launch a Kuala Lumpur-Osaka-Hawaii A330 by the end of June.
“Hawaii is the number one destination for the Japanese. There are many flights from there (Japan). Yields are very high and we are going to rely on that,” said AirAsia X CEO, Benyamin Ismail. Following Hawaii, the airline plans to add flights Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas, all routed via Japan, using its fifth freedom rights.
As reported last week, AirAsia X’s Thai offshoot, Thai AirAsia X (TTX), will launch Don Mueang-Frankfurt mid-year with A330ceos. The LCC has said it was studying new routes from Bangkok to Warsaw, Prague and Budapest, given the lack of nonstop competitors. TTX has excess capacity after its withdrawal from the Middle East. It terminated A330 flights to Tehran in early December and Muscat in January because of low demand.
A pioneer in the long-haul budget market, AirAsia X has had a few setbacks. Its A330 flights to Christchurch, Tianjin, Abu Dhabi, Adelaide, Nagoya and Haneda failed to deliver good numbers and have been terminated, usually within a year of launching.
Elsewhere, AirAsia India plans to add six A320s to its fleet of eight of the type by year-end, AirAsia Japan, delayed once again, plans to resume operations by March 31 and finish the year with five A320s. In Vietnam, the group is considering the launch of an affiliate by the close of 2018.
