By Ashley Erika O. Jose, Reporter
AIRASIA PHILIPPINES is specializing in expanding domestic routes and tackling key industry challenges as a part of its recovery strategy, its chief executive officer (CEO) said.
“Now five years in AirAsia, it has been a superb balance between the difficult pandemic years and the years of recovery,” AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricardo P. Isla said in an interview with BusinessWorld.
Before joining AirAsia Philippines in 2019, Mr. Isla spent nearly 20 years within the telecommunications industry, where he led the international retail sales and distribution for one in all the country’s major telecom corporations.
PATH TO RECOVERY
“Initially, the pandemic presented a really difficult situation for us. We needed to be very resourceful and resilient. Actually, we’re still on the trail to full recovery,” he said.
Mr. Isla said that AirAsia Philippines’ domestic routes have fully recovered, but its international network will only fully get better by the second half of the yr.
“It is due to China. It used to account for 30% of our international capability. Without delay, it shouldn’t be really delivering, and we just need to catch up,” Mr. Isla said.
Because of this, AirAsia Philippines will concentrate on maximizing its domestic destinations, particularly in areas where the airline has a robust presence.
“For 2025, we’re maximizing our domestic [network], especially in leisure destinations. We’ll stay focused and further strengthen our strong territories. We expect to spice up our capability by about 10-15% in these highly regarded destinations,” he said.
He added that the low-cost carrier plans to focus on its strong territories reminiscent of Boracay, Kalibo, Palawan, and other leisure destinations.
“Nonetheless, for international, we might still wish to concentrate on our positioning as a low-cost carrier. We’ve got to return to basics, meaning rebuild the trust and confidence of our passengers,” he said.
Mr. Isla noted that the airline is banking on its parent company’s plans, as AirAsia Philippines stands to learn heavily from the consolidation of Capital A Berhad (Capital A) and AirAsia X Berhad (AAX).
Earlier in January, AAX announced a mutual agreement with Capital A to increase the timeline for the completion of the proposed acquisition of the group’s aviation business.
Last yr, Capital A Berhad disclosed that it had entered right into a non-binding agreement with its unit, AirAsia X, for the sale of its aviation businesses — AirAsia Berhad and AirAsia Aviation Group Ltd.
“Allow us to also consider the status of our parent company with regard to the proposed regularization plan,” Mr. Isla said, adding that the transaction is predicted to be accomplished soon.
In keeping with Mr. Isla, this might be followed by its parent company’s order for over 600 more aircraft.
“We’ve got overbooked around 647 aircraft, with spread of Airbus A320s and mostly Airbus A321NEOs. This may serve all countries, including Philippines AirAsia, Malaysia, Indonesia AirAsia, Thailand AirAsia, and Cambodia AirAsia,” he said.
REVIVAL OF ROUTES
The low-cost carrier is confident concerning the recovery of air travel, and AirAsia Philippines goals to capture that momentum, Mr. Isla said, adding that the corporate will assess which of its pandemic-affected routes to revive.
“We should be willing to sail through the uncharted waters of the travel industry. By that, we would like to further widen our network. And at the identical time, after we widen our network, we would like to return to where we used to fly throughout the early parts of 2019,” he said.
For AirAsia Philippines, the challenges within the aviation industry remain, Mr. Isla said, identifying these as manpower, supply chain issues, and the necessity to meet up with infrastructure.
“There are numerous challenges, but three key elements—people, availability of parts and resources—are particularly pressing, and now we’re running out of MROs (maintenance, repair, and overhaul) facilities,” he said.
Many Middle Eastern corporations are after Filipino talent, Mr. Isla noted, adding that AirAsia Philippines is further strengthening the perks it offers its employees.
He added that provide chain disruption continues to be a serious challenge within the aviation industry.
“We’re actively mitigating this. We’re an ASEAN company, and all the opposite airlines throughout the AirAsia group. So we’ve got the muscle relating to procurement of parts,” he said.
Moreover, Mr. Isla said that as a result of the constraints of MROs, the corporate has launched Asian Digital Engineering.
“That is our MRO prioritizing the Philippines. So, we’ve addressed that. These are the resources we want to keep up, namely the resources and parts,” he added.
