AirAsia X Berhad (“AAX” or “the Company”), the long-haul, low cost airline affiliate of the AirAsia Group is pleased to announce its operating statistics for the 4th quarter 2015 (“4Q15”) and the Full Financial Year ended 31 December 2015 (“FY2015” or “2015”).

In line with the Company’s expectations, 4Q15’s operating performance has seen significant improvement across all routes, benefiting from the turnaround initiatives implemented in FY2015.

AAX’s passenger load factor (“PLF”) rose 2 percentage points (“ppts’’) year-on-year (“y-o-y”) to 83% in 4Q15 versus 81% same period last year, despite higher average base fare as compared to 4Q14. This positive achievement was driven by aggressive marketing activities, enhanced Fly-Thru connectivity in FY2015, and the returned traffic after the challenging market conditions in 2014 – 1H2015. However, further improvement was hindered by slower-than-expected recovery of Kathmandu’s operations after the massive Nepal earthquake.

During the transition year, AAX exercised strategic capacity management in FY2015 by terminating route to Narita, Nagoya, Adelaide, and shifted two routes (Colombo and ChongQing) to A320 operations. The capacity from the route consolidation was strategically deployed to new unique routes such as Sapporo, underserved routes, charters, and wet leasing operations. Consequently, AAX’s capacity (“Available-Seat-KM” or “ASK”) in FY2015 and 4Q15 reduced 8% and 9% y-o-y respectively.

As for Thai AirAsia X (“TAAX”), it has recorded a healthy PLF of 83% in 4Q15 during the year-end peak while Indonesia AirAsia X’s (“IAAX”) overall operating performance registered a consistent trend in 4Q15.

The FY2015 has been a challenging year, as the Group was setback by irrational competition from industry peers, currency volatility, regulatory uncertainties for Thailand and Indonesia, as well as a series of unforeseen circumstances. In an effort to turnaround the Group’s performance, a multi-phase turnaround initiative was ironed out during the year. Moving forward into 2016, AirAsia X remains vigilant and continues to explore strategic initiatives to ensure sustainable growth.