AirAsia X to take over AirAsia to Guangzhou

May 10th 2019

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Cautious optimism of greater group cooperation and short-haul widebody deployment. Read More »

AirAsia X will replace AirAsia on two weekly Kuala Lumpur-Guangzhou flights. This is seemingly small as AirAsia has up to four daily flights. The typical 377-seat A330s of AirAsia X will replace the 180-seat A320s of AirAsia.

There is cautious optimism this is a sign of or will encourage more intra-group cooperation. There has been a growing argument for AirAsia’s Malaysian units to integrate their networks and have AirAsia X’s A330s takeover certain frequencies or entire routes from AirAsia’s A320s.

AirAsia and AirAsia X have common shareholders but ultimately different shareholder composition. The long-running legal agreement is that AirAsia can operate on flights under four hours while AirAsia X takes routes over four hours. It has proven easier for two international AirAsia brands to overlap, such as the Malaysia and Thai short-haul AirAsia units on Bangkok-Kuala Lumpur.

Passenger demand and capacity constraints make an argument for larger aircraft. Cargo can also be a factor since AirAsia X’s A330s can take pallets and containers.

Peer LCCs have increasingly used widebodies on short-haul flights. The implication is not AirAsia being directly impacted but rather the other LCCs showing the logic. Scoot early in its history deployed its 787s on the short-haul flights from Singapore to Bangkok and Hong Kong. Cebu Pacific has used its A330s on slot-constrained routes from Manila to Singapore and Hong Kong, and will begin A330 flights between Manila and Shanghai.