AirAsia X eyes profitability by end-2023

Low-cost medium haul airline, AirAsia X Bhd (AAX) aims to be profitable by the end of 2023, banking on huge demand for air travel and its attractive low fares. AirAsia X Malaysia CEO Benyamin Ismail said the airline has benefitted from the group’s restructuring, enabling its cost structure to come down quite a bit, thus providing room for it to set lower fares. "The positive side is demand in the market is high but supply is very low. (The market’s) air fares are fairly high (at the moment), so we can benefit from it for the meantime. There's a big differential between our fares and other full service carriers. I think we will be attracting the people in the middle income who are not able to afford to pay high fares,” he told reporters here, today. Meanwhile, newly appointed chairman Tunku Datuk Mahmood Fawzy said AAX has put key performance indicators and targets in place as guidance for the management in achieving the turn around mission.<br/>