Airasia Essay 8

world’s lowest unit cost of US$0. 023/ASK and a passenger break-even load factor of 52%.

It has hedged 100% of its fuel requirements for the next three years, achieves an aircraft turnaround time of 25 minutes, has a crew productivity level that is triple that of Malaysia Airlines and achieves an average aircraft utilisation rate of 13 hours a day. AirAsia is currently the main customer of the Airbus A320.The company has placed an order of 175 units of the same plane to service its routes and at least 50 of these A320 will be operational by 2013. The first unit of the plane arrived on 8 December, 2005.

On 27 March 2006, the Government of Malaysia announced that AirAsia will take over 96 non-trunk routes, in addition to 19 domestic trunk routes. This was part of Malaysia Airlines route rationalization programme which saw a large number of its domestic sectors being transferred to AirAsia from 1 August 2006. On December 27, 2006, AirAsia's CEO Tony Fernandes unveiled a five-year plan to further enhance its presence in Asia.In the plan, AirAsia will strengthen and enhance its route network by connecting all the existing cities in the region and expanding further into Indochina, Indonesia, Southern China (Kun Ming, Xiamen, Shenzen) and India. The airline will focus on developing its hubs in Bangkok and Jakarta through its sister companies, Thai AirAsia and Indonesia AirAsia. Hence, with increase frequency and addition of new routes, AirAsia expects passenger volume to hit 18 million by end-2007.

On September 2007, AirAsia's Kuala Lumpur hub is fully operated with A320s while Thai AirAsia received its first Airbus A320 in October 2007.Indonesia AirAsia

will receive its first Airbus by January 2008. On April 5, 2007, AirAsia announced a three-year partnership with the British Formula One team AT Williams. The airline brand is displayed on the helmets of Nico Rosberg and Alexander Wurz, and on the bargeboards and nose of the cars.

Business / service operation AirAsia has progressively launched value added services. On April 24, 2007, AirAsia introduced web check-in. This made AirAsia the first airline in Malaysia to offer the ability to check in online and print out boarding passes.It is now available for Malaysian domestic travel only and for those with no check-in baggage.

On May 15, 2007, a service named "Xpress Boarding" was launched, enabling passengers to get priority boarding for a fee. This product is available in all hubs including Thai AirAsia and Indonesia AirAsia. In the pipeline, after launching web check-in and kiosk check-in, AirAsia will later introduce PDA check-in. On AirAsia X flights, passengers are given a choice of purchasing extra baggage weight, meals, comfort kit, and seat selection, all with nominal fees.