November 22nd, AirAsia officially welcomes the arrival of their first Airbus A321neo aircraft (registered as 9M-VAA).
This is the first of 353 A321neos on order by the AirAsia Group, which will eventually replace the existing fleet of A320 and A320neo aircraft; throughout the network covering Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Japan.
AirAsia will initially operate the aircraft from its Kuala Lumpur hub to cities in Asia, including Kuching, Kota Kinabalu, Singapore, Bangkok and Shenzhen.
We are proud to welcome our first A321neo today as the backbone of our future operations. The new generation state-of-the-art aircraft will allow AirAsia to further boost air connectivity to and from Malaysia ahead of Visit Malaysia 2020, at the same time deliver greater opportunities for tourism, business and trade in line with the government’s Shared Prosperity Vision 2030.
AirAsia Group CEO – Tan Sri Tony Fernandes
The A321neo equips 236 seats, a 27% increase in capacity compared to AirAsia’s present A320 (180 seats) and A320neo (186 seats). The aircraft also has more than 10% fuel savings.
Earlier this year, AirAsia converted 253 orders for the A320neo to the larger A321neo version; with a total of 353 aircraft on order this makes AirAsia one of the world’s largest customers for the A321neo.