AirAsia has rejigged its Airbus order, replacing a number of A321neo purchases with the longer-range variant.
The announcement was made on February 22, 2024, as AirAsia welcomed the CEO of Commercial Aircraft business of Airbus, Christian Scherer, to RedQ – the airline’s corporate headquarters in Malaysia.
During the ceremony, Tony Fernandes, CEO of Capital A which owns AirAsia, set out his vision for the airline to become the world’s first low-cost network carrier.
Fernandes is looking to expand to new markets in North Asia, Australia and Central Asia from Southeast Asia – and eventually as far as Europe, Africa and the east coast of North America.
“With our wide-body Airbus A330 fleet including the introduction of A330neo, we are also looking to expand our medium to long-haul network to the European continent, to cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Bratislava, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Africa (Cairo, Nairobi, Cape Town), East Coast North America (New York, Miami, Toronto) via Europe and West Coast North America (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver) via Japan,” Fernades said.
With a focus on the new markets, AirAsia announced that existing orders for 36 Airbus A321neos would be switched to A321LR aircraft.
According to ch-aviation.com, AirAsia currently has an order for 362 Airbus A321neo aircraft, with deliveries set to begin in June 2024.
As well as the A320neo and A321XR, Air Asia is also awaiting delivery of A321XLRs and A330neo aircraft.
AirAsia has not taken delivery of any new planes since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“We look forward to expanding our narrow-body fleet with the introduction of the A321XLR and exploring opportunities with the A321LR, which will gradually replace our workhorse A320 predecessor over the coming years from our key hubs including Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila and more,” Fernandes said.