Sometimes it can an airline months to gain traction on a new route, with load factors slowly climbing to a reasonable level as the route progressively develops. This month AirAsia and AirAsia X have launched new routes from Malaysia to China that are already achieving load factors of more than 90% on their Airbus aircraft.
Strong demand from China
The new routes are with AirAsia Malaysia from Kota Kinabalu to Beijing and Macau and with AirAsia X from Kuala Lumpur to Chengdu. AirAsia X recorded a 99% load factor on its first flight from Chengdu to Kuala Lumpur International (KUL) on July 1st. AirAsia X (AAX) uses an Airbus A330 on the route, and on the first flight, it carried 376 passengers, prompting the airline to increase frequency from twice weekly to three times weekly.
The most iteration of flight D7326 from Kuala Lumpur to Chengdu Tianfu International (TFU) was last Thursday, when an AAX Airbus A330-300, registration 9M-XXZ and MSN 1612, departed KUL at 18:17 and arrived in Chengdu at 22:30 after a 4:13-hour flight.
The service is scheduled to operate on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. AirAsia X Malaysia (D7) currently operates four routes to/from China, with more than 22 weekly flights from Kuala Lumpur to Chengdu, Beijing Daxing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.
AirAsia said today that it is confident its newly-launched routes between Kota Kinasbalu and Beijing and Macau will continue to receive strong demand, with both inaugural flights recording impressive load factors in excess of 90%. The first flight from Beijing, AK1561 on July 2nd, was 92% full, and the inaugural flight from Macau, AK1302, carried 169 passengers with a load factor of 93%.
AirAsia Malaysia adding narrowbody services
The service to Beijing will operate daily, whereas the Kota Kinabalu route to Macau will run on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Both flights were operated with Airbus A320neos from the all-Airbus AirAsia Malaysia (AAM) fleet of 200 aircraft, which, according to Flightradar24.com, contains 40 A320neos, four A321neos and 156 A320s.
Photo: DLeng/Shutterstock
Kota Kinabalu is the capital city of Sabah on the northern edge of the island of Borneo. AAM CEO Riad Asmat said that AAM is proud to continuously contribute to the tourism industry in Sabah and that Kota Kinabalu is an important hub for the airline. He added:
“Currently we operate 21 domestic and international routes to the state with a total of 300 flights weekly to/from Sabah, now with the addition of daily flights to/from Beijing and four weekly flights to/from Macau,”
“From 1st January to the first week of July this year, we have flown 2.1 million travelers to Sabah and with these additional direct flight connections the numbers will continue to increase, contributing significantly to the number of tourist arrivals, boosting the economy in the state.”
AirAsia Malaysia currently operates 14 routes to/from China, with more than 100 weekly flights between Malaysia and China. From the nation’s capital of Kuala Lumpur, it services the Chinese destinations of Guilin, Quanzhou, Guangzhou, Kunming, Shenzhen, Nanning, Shantou and Macau. The airline also operates flights from Kota Kinabalu to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Beijing and Macau, and there is also service between Johor Bahru to Guangzhou.
Source: Flightradar24.com