Capital A Looks To Offload And Merge AirAsia Airlines
It was reported at the start of 2024, that Capital A's AirAsia Malaysia and AirAsia subsidiaries in Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines would be merged with AirAsia X to form a new airline promising new routes by 2025.
It is unclear how this will impact the false start of AirAsia Cambodia which was due to launch in 2023. There was no update from the company towards the end of the year despite ambitions to be operational by the end of 2023 and it still has no official social media presence or website in the Kingdom.
The Malasian-based conglomerate Capital A announced in January 2024, that it plans to sell its budget airline AirAsia to its medium-haul affiliate AirAsia X to streamline operations. This would mean a merger of AirAsia Malaysia and AirAsia subsidiaries with AirAsia X.
According to Capital A chief executive Tony Fernandes, a new entity would operate short-, medium- and long-haul flights with the CEO adding "We are going to merge the two airlines and double passenger traffic to 200 million (per year) from about 80 to 90 million currently." He added that The merged airline entity would offer new routes to India, Africa, Kazakhstan, and North and South America by 2025.
AirAsia Cambodia - When Will It Launch?
The combined AirAsia fleet has a fleet of 166 A320 and A321 planes while AirAsia X has 17 A330s in operation - the Cambodian operations were first announced at the end of 2022 with Capital A signing a partnership with Sivilai Asia in a joint venture.
AirAsia Cambodia announced in October 2023 that it had planned to begin flights with a new Cambodian air operator’s certificate (AOC) by the end of 2023 but this was subject to securing the two Airbus A320s. In Q4 2023, the airline also formed a strategic partnership with Oriental Bank Plc and signed a Merchant Service Agreement.
Initially, AirAisa Cambodia was going to launch from Phnom Penh, but it also moved operations to the new Siem Reap–Angkor International Airport (SAI) to utilise 16 check-in counters at the terminal at Row C01-C16. There has been no update from AirAsia Cambodia or its CEO Vissoth Nam since about when it would begin operations in Cambodia and which routes would be serviced.
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