KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Group Bhd says it has transformed into a leading all-in-one Asean digital travel and lifestyle super app, selling not just its own flight tickets but also those of other airlines.
"When we first started off as a low cost carrier, many were in doubt of our prospects and being an underdog in a market dominated by legacy airlines made it all the more challenging," executive chairman Datuk Kamarudin Meranun said in a statement on its 19th anniversary today.
"Almost two decades on, we not only proved our critics wrong; we are now connecting over 160 destinations across Asia and the Pacific, bringing the people of Asean even closer together. With airline operations in four of Asean's largest economies and plans for more, no other carrier can be more Asean than us," he added.
He said AirAsia had played a key role in promoting integration between the west and east Malaysia by providing connectivity to the people, and becoming the first airline to connect the country to the once forgotten cities of Macau and Bandung, just to name a few.
"Not to mention being the first airline to have female pilots in the country, thus recognising women's contributions and achievements in aviation.
"Most importantly, we have built a strong foundation for a sustainable future for our airline and digital businesses to not only survive, but come out more robust and resilient than ever before," he said.
Kamarudin said what AirAsia had done over recent times to turn the business around in the challenging times was testament to the dedication of its hardworking Allstars and feedback from over 600 million guests who had flown with it.
Group chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said there was an equal amount of pessimism towards the group's digital transformation.
However; the group had clear and deep understanding of value, its customers and the technology itself, and its determination towards making it happen.
"We are young, we have great brains that produce great ideas, and we will definitely come back stronger and more powerful post-Covid-19.
"While there's a glitch - and Covid-19 is a glitch - this is not the end but a new beginning. AirAsia will be a never ending story that only gets better and better. We will keep on growing to be the best in the world; this is really the time to restart, refresh and rebuild," he said.
Fernandes said today was AirAsia's 19th anniversary and the airasia.com was proud to be the leading travel and lifestyle super app in Asean.
It caters to 17 million monthly active users and growing, giving customers the convenience of finding anything and everything related to travel and everyday life like food and fresh produce all on the one platform.
"The travel downtime caused by the pandemic over the past months has indeed given us a great opportunity to accelerate our digital transformation.
"Apart from airasia.com for travel-related products and services, we also have e-commerce (airasia shop, airasia food and airasia fresh), Teleport (logistics), Santan (Asean fast food chain), BigPay and BIG Rewards (fintech), as well as the Muslim-centric services platform Ikhlas," he said.
To commemorate its 19th anniversary, AirAsia has today launched AirAsia Museum, an online archive of images, documents and publications related to the history of the company since its early days from pre-2001 up to 2020.
The virtual museum takes visitors through key milestones in airasia's digital journey that started from the outset in 2002, when it became the first airline in Asia to go ticketless via direct online bookings.