To put all of its A330s back into service, AirAsia X is seeking funding.
AirAsia X is seeking to raise around $10.8 million (RM50 Million) in new capital as a result of its soaring bookings and the need to fulfil unmet demand. The airline claimed that it needs the infusion of cash to support its short-term working capital needs, which include putting parked aircraft back into service.
Need money to properly operationalize the fleet
In order to raise up to RM50 million ($10.8 million), AirAsia X Berhad stated yesterday that it plans to propose a placement of shares with two institutional investors, one of whom is a local investor. The company would be able to raise money through the proposed placement, according to the statement, in a timely and smart manner. The cash would mostly be utilized for the fleet’s reactivation and maintenance.As AirAsia X (AAX) improves its operational and financial performance in line with its PN17 regularization strategy, this would be the company’s first share raising since 2015. The airline, along with other units of the AirAsia Group, put steps in place to deal with its financial difficulty at the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The airline will turn around from being loss-making to posting two consecutive quarters of profit in the quarters ending September 30th, 2022, and December 31st, 2022, thanks to these measures, which include cost-containment efforts and debt restructuring
. The share placement, in the words of AAX, is “an interim fundraising measure to bolster its short-term working capital requirements as the Company continues to recover and grow its operations in the post-pandemic era.”
increasing international travel
Since the regional borders were reopened last year, according to AAX CEO Benyamin Ismail, the company has expanded and stepped up its operations to accommodate the demand for foreign travel. In response to the topic of airplanes entering service again, he said:
AirAsia X has 17 aircraft in its fleet as of May 2023, with 11 of them activated and in service. We plan to activate further aircraft before the year’s end.
We are happy to have entered this new age following COVID-19, in which we see the confidence returning to the aviation industry, which has amply demonstrated a rebound following three protracted years of stall.”Determining the types and numbers in an airline’s fleet is a shifting goal; for this reason, aviation news publications like Simple Flying use reliable data sources for their reporting, some of which may or may not be 100% current. In this instance, we looked to Planespotters.net, which states that the AirAsia X fleet now consists of 15 aircraft. However, it also lists two additional aircraft as being stored, which would be consistent with Ismail’s remarks that the fleet is made up of 17 aircraft.
All of the aircraft are Airbus A330-300s, with 12 of them marked as active and three of them as parked, which explains the earlier remarks regarding shifting targets. The 15 Airbus A330s are between 8.1 and 18.2 years old on average, while the two that are classified as being stored are each slightly over eight years old.
A total of 83 flights each week are currently offered by AAX to 16 medium-distance locations, including Seoul (South Korea), Auckland (New Zealand), Delhi (India), Shanghai (China), Bali (Indonesia), Bangkok (Thailand), Melbourne, Sydney, and the Gold Coast in Australia.
