AirAsia X: Fourth Quarter and Full Financial Year Ended 2017 Preliminary Operating Statistics

AirAsia X Berhad (“AAX” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce its operating statistics for the 4th quarter 2017 (“4Q17”) and the Full Financial Year ended 31 December 2017 (“FY2017” or “2017”).

The fourth quarter overall operating performance improved year-on-year (“YoY”) with the number of passengers carried increased 12% YoY at 1.55 million passengers, transcending beyond the Company’s Available Seat per Kilometres (“ASK”) growth of 8% in 4Q17 to 9,146 million as compared to the same period last year. Passenger Load Factor (“PLF”) grew 2 ppts YoY to 83%.

During the quarter, AirAsia X Malaysia added frequencies to five routes in total, namely to Xi’an, Sapporo, Incheon, Busan, and Taipei, encouraged by year-end peak season demand. Additionally, the Company added Jeju to the network in December, which is also the latest unique route for the Company. The fleet size for AirAsia X Malaysia remains at 22 A330s as at end of December.

On the associates, AirAsia X Thailand reported PLF of 91%, up by a whopping 13 ppts as compared to 78% from the same period last year, as it recovered from the short term impact on the tourism sector due to the passing of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the Thai government’s crackdown on zero-dollar tours from China. For the quarter under review, AirAsia X Thailand carried a total of 445,137 passengers, surging by 27% as compared to the same quarter in 2016. AirAsia X Thailand increased frequencies on two routes; frequency for Incheon increased to 3 times daily from November 2017 onwards, while Osaka was increased to twice daily from December 2017 onwards. No additional aircraft was added into AirAsia X Thailand during the quarter under review as the fleet size remained at 6 aircraft.

In Indonesia, the operations of AirAsia X Indonesia was temporarily hampered in 4Q17, due to the volcanic activity of Mt. Agung in Bali which started end of September and through to December. AirAsia X Indonesia carried a total of 113,792 passengers for the quarter while passenger load factor stood at 69%. AirAsia X Indonesia fleet size remained with 2 A330s, hence bringing the total fleet of AirAsia X Group (“the Group”) to 30 as at end of December 2017.

(1) Number of earned seats flown. Earned seats comprise seats sold to passengers (including no-shows) and seats provided for promotional purposes
(2) Number of seats flown
(3) Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK) / Available Seat Kilometres (ASK)
(4) Available Seat Kilometres (ASK) measures an airline’s passenger capacity. Total seats flown multiplied by the number of kilometres flown
(5) Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK) is a measure of the volume of passengers carried by the airline. Number of passengers multiplied by the number of kilometres these passengers have flown
(6) Number of flights flown
(7) Number of A330-300 aircraft for AAX Group (AirAsia X Malaysia, AirAsia X Thailand And AirAsia X Indonesia)