AIRASIA Group has officially rebranded as Capital A – its new corporate identity to show the diversification of its business portfolio beyond travel.
The budget airline operator said the name change reflected its new core business strategy as an investment holding company in tandem with its transformation from an airline into a one-stop digital travel and lifestyle services group.
Chief executive officer of Capital A, Tony Fernandes, said the change is not “about unveiling a new logo”, but instead marked a milestone for the group as it “reinforces we are not just an airline anymore.”
As part of its move to grow its non-airline revenue the group’s portfolio businesses now includes fintech business BigPay (recently secured US$100 million in financing from South Korea’s SK Group), aircraft engineering division Asia Digital Engineering (ADE) and logistics venture Teleport – all of which are performing well according to AirAsia.
The airline group has also raised over RM2.5 billion (US$597.66 million) to date through its fundraising strategy. It is setting its sights on further capital raising initiatives for the airasia Super App, Teleport and ADE.
In the past two years, the group has ventured into the food delivery business – airasia food – in Malaysia and Singapore, with plans to launch in Indonesia later this year.
Last August it launched airasia ride to boost its super app’s offerings. The e-hailing service started in the Klang Valley and has since expanded to Langkawi, Penang, Johor Bahru, Ipoh, Seremban and Melaka. It will be rolled out to more cities in the coming months..
“Over the past two years we have spent the downturn in flying building a solid foundation for a viable and successful future, which is not solely reliant on airfares alone,” commented Fernandes on these new businesses.
On the airline, he said the AirAsia brand name will remain. “It’s one of the strongest brands in Asia and provides a solid platform for all of our other products and services to leverage from each other.”
Fernandes is confident air travel will pick up soon despite the last two years being “the most difficult and disrupted years in the history of commercial aviation.”
“Domestic air travel has already started to rebound in our key markets,” he said. AirAsia filled 80% of seats in Q4 2021, the highest number of passengers since the start of the pandemic.
While the Omicron variant may delay the return of international flights pre-Covid levels Fernandes believes it will be short-lived due to factors such as accelerated vaccines and booster shots, as well as the world gradually learning to live with Covid.
“I am hopeful borders will reopen gradually throughout 2022 and we will see a return to normal capacity for our international services by the middle to third quarter of this year.”
The Capital A boss is upbeat that “the best is yet to come. We have pivoted, we have transformed and we have a five year plan in place which will see non airline revenues contributing around 50% of overall group revenue by 2026.”
Here’s what Capital A aims to achieve By 2026:
- Group airlines connecting over 1 billion people in ASEAN
- The engineering division (ADE) becomes an industry leader for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services in South-east Asia
- airasia Super App to be the super app of choice in ASEAN
- 10 million monthly active users for BigPay.
- 10% market share in South-east Asia for Teleport, in the logistics and e-commerce industry.
- 5 million sign-ups for edutech arm AirAsia Academy.
- Over 21 million monthly orders on airasia grocer.
• All images credit: Capital A
