AirAsia X (D7, Kuala Lumpur International) is considering modifying its order for sixty-six A330-900neo to include A350-900 and/or A321neo units.
AirAsia Group founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Tony Fernandes, told Bloomberg in an interview the A350s at AirAsia X would be used to upgauge capacity on high-demand, slot-constrained routes.
“Over the last ten years we’ve been tweaking the model,” he said. “Now that we kind of know what we want to do, we’re looking at the fleet. We’re toying with the A350. If we went A350, we wouldn’t use the A330neo anymore, we’d go all A350.”
AirAsia X also has ten A350-900s on order from Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) with deliveries to run from 2021 onwards.
At the same time, AirAsia X may also convert some of its A330neo to A321neos for use in developing thinner, medium-haul routes that, at present, are not viable for service with its fleet of A330-300s.
AirAsia X is scheduled to receive its first A330neos by the end of 2018. As an interim measure, it is in talks with lessors to take up to ten A330ceos to support its capacity growth ahead of the neo's delivery. Of those ten ceo aircraft, three to four aircraft will be allocated to AirAsia X (Malaysia), four to five aircraft to Thai AirAsia X (XJ, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi) and two aircraft to Indonesia AirAsia X (IDX, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta).
According to Fernandes, the arrival of the added widebody jets will not signal AirAsia X's much-anticipated return to Europe given what he said was overcapacity in the Europe-Asia market.
“When we come into a market we’ve got to make sure we can really bring fares down; we don’t think we can,” he said.
As such, AirAsia X will focus on medium-haul routes for the foreseeable future. Expansion into Europe and the mainland United States will likely only come in three to four years time and through future hubs from North Asia, the CEO added.
