KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Group could be adding new aircraft model to its fleet with a possible upcoming deal with Boeing Co, as two of its top executives attended a meeting in Seattle in the US with the American aircraft manufacturer recently.
NST Business understood that the executives, AirAsia founder Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and AirAsia X Bhd chief executive officer (CEO) Benyamin Ismail were at the meeting to possibly negotiate a deal for Boeing wide-body aircraft.
“The plan is there for quite some time but the key question is about cost. They (AirAsia) have to make sure their cost remains low so they could offer affordable flight tickets,” a source told NST Business, adding that the new Boeing planes could be used by AirAsia X due to its long-haul business model.
The potential new deal could be announced as early as July this year at the upcoming Farnborough Airshow 2018 in the UK.
Yesterday, Benyamin uploaded a picture of himself holding a Boeing B787-10 model with AirAsia X livery on Instagram.
He captioned it as ‘short meeting in Seattle. Boeing 787-10 in #AirAsia X livery.” His geotag or location tag on Instagram was Seattle, Washington.
Interestingly, Ben when contacted, told NST Business that AirAsia X is not planning to purchase Boeing planes.
“No. No plans at all. We are meeting all American companies – Amazon, Expedia, etc,” he said in a reply to NST Business’ query on the possible Boeing deal.
Fernandes had also recently denied the rumours, saying that AirAsia will stick to Boeing’s rival, European plane manufacturer Airbus.
AirAsia Group currently has two types of plane models in its fleet, which include the Airbus A320-200 and A320neo and the Airbus A330-300.
The narrow-body A320s are used by its short-haul airliner, AirAsia Bhd while wide-body A330s are used by AirAsia X.
Meanwhile, Maybank Investment Bank Bhd aviation analyst Mohshin Aziz said it is not likely that AirAsia Group would start operating different aircraft models as it would introduce a new set of complexity in its daily operations.
“The crew and engineers would have to be dual aircraft-type rated. Different set of spare parts must be kept. Training module for employees are doubled,” he said.
AirAsia re-started its operations in 2001 with two old Boeing 737-300 aircraft. It was first set up in 1993 and began operations in 1996 before it was bought by Fernandes and his business partner, Datuk Kamarudin Meranun who is also AirAsia X Bhd group CEO.
Meanwhile, the source also said both AirAsia executives could also negotiate about flying to new routes in the US, such as Los Angeles or San Francisco from AirAsia X’s base in Japan.
However in a series of tweets in June 2017, Fernandes said AirAsia X will stick to the 8 to 9 hour destination instead of focusing on ultra long-haul routes which are 10 hours or more.
AirAsia X is currently flying to its first destination in America, Honolulu, Hawaii from Osaka, Japan.