GLOBAL AMBITION: Japan’s ANA president Shinichiro Ito (left) shakes hands with Fernandes, as they announce that both airlines will form a joint-venture to establish ‘AirAsia Japan’ at a press conference in Tokyo. — AFP photo
KUCHING: Low-cost carrier (LCC) AirAsia Bhd (AirAsia), in its ambition to become the largest airline group in Southeast Asia, has decided that Jakarta become its regional headquarters rather than Kuala Lumpur.
In a recent statement to Indonesia’s newsgroup The Jakarta Globe in Tokyo, AirAsia’s group chief executive officer
Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said the airline had planned to open its regional base at South Jakarta’s Equity Building this October.
He also mentioned about the plan for AirAsia to take advantage of easy access into the Asean secretariat in advance of the ‘open skies’ agreement slated to take effect in 2015, adding that the agreement would lower barriers for air travel between the region’s capital cities.
On the reason for choosing Jakarta as their regional base instead of Kuala Lumpur, Fernandes was quoted as saying: “Asean is based in Jakarta, and Indonesia will be the largest economy in Asean in time to come … And I like it there.”
The news would mark a small step towards AirAsia’s giant leap into becoming one of the world’s biggest LCCs by 2020. Recently, AirAsia entered into a joint-venture with Japan’s Air Nippon Airways (ANA) to form a new LCC, AirAsia Japan Co Ltd, with the former having a 49-per cent stake.
“Given the low penetration of Japan’s under-penetrated market for low cost travel of nine per cent, we think AirAsia Japan’s load factor could easily average 80 per cent,” said research house OSK Research Sdn Bhd in a recent note.
“Further liberalisation of Japan’s air landing rights will be positive for further route expansion,” it added.
Another big initiative exercised by AirAsia towards its global ambition was the massive order book of 86 undelivered A320s and the recent order for 200 A320neos – the largest single order so far placed with Airbus in terms of number of aircrafts.
Currently, the low-cost airline operates 89 units of A320s.
In an earlier statement, Fernandes ‘categorically’ underlined that affiliates of AirAsia in Thailand and Indonesia would be receiving a large chunk of the 200 additional aircraft, where it planned to utilise the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of AirAsia Indonesia and AirAsia Thailand to fund these acquisitions.