4 March 2023
Summer flights remain down by 55%.
Malaysia’s AirAsia X underwent massive upheaval during the pandemic. In the soon-to-start northern summer, the widebody-only airline expects to serve 18 destinations from Kuala Lumpur. It currently has 14 A330-300s, of which five are parked as of the end of February.
AirAsia X’s summer destinations
Examining the northern summer season (March 26th-October 28th) reveals that AirAsia X will serve 18 destinations from Kuala Lumpur, as detailed below. Some won’t remain long, while others will resume in that period. Australia is its most-served country, with four destinations and up to four daily flights. It was second to China in summer of 2019, with the Asian nation continuing to awaken from the crisis.
- Seoul Incheon: 10 weekly
- Auckland: daily (via Sydney)
- Denpasar Bali: daily
- Melbourne: daily
- Taipei: daily
- Tokyo Haneda: daily
- Sydney: daily (continuing to Auckland)
- Perth: five weekly to daily (daily from July)
- Kota Kinabalu: up to five weekly (ends in May)
- Delhi: four weekly
- Honolulu: four weekly via Osaka Kansai (resumes September 1st)
- Osaka Kansai: four weekly (later continuing to Honolulu)
- Jeddah: four weekly (until May 31st outbound)
- Shanghai Pudong: four weekly
- Beijing Daxing: up to four weekly (three weekly, then four from May)
- Gold Coast: three weekly (I once flew this route)
- Hangzhou: three weekly
- Pusan: three weekly
Which destinations has it cut?
Analysis of AirAsia X’s schedules for summer 2023 versus summer 2019 reveals that it no longer serves Amritsar, Avalon (Melbourne Tullamarine is served instead), Beijing Capital (Daxing is served instead), Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Fukuoka, Jaipur, Jeju, Langzhou, Sapporo, Tianjin, or Xian. Excluding Avalon and Beijing Capital, will AirAsia X relaunch any with its existing A330-300s or incoming A321XLRs or A330-900s?
Inevitably, China features heavily in the cut list. AirAsia X has 330 departing flights to China this summer, down 82% from 1,812 in the summer of 2019. It is by far the worst affected nation in AirAsia’s network, after which is India (flights down by 64%), Taiwan (-52%), and South Korea (-50%).
If 2019-2022 is examined more widely, AirAsiaX has also ceased Kuching, Tokyo Haneda (Haneda is served instead), Okinawa (briefly), and Singapore. Yes, it did deploy 377-seat A330-300s on the 184 miles (296 km) from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, with a double daily service from November 2019 to April 2020.
A day in the life
AirAsia X will have an average of 11 daily departures this summer from Kuala Lumpur, with as few as eight and as many as 14. On April 19th, for example, all of these are scheduled to take off:
- 03:00: D7518, Pusan
- 05:00: D7700, Jeddah
- 07:30: D7378, Taipei
- 07:50: D7302, Hangzhou
- 08:45: D7676, Kota Kinabalu
- 08:50: D7798, Denpasar-Bali
- 14:20: D7522, Tokyo Haneda
- 15:50: D7508, Seoul Incheon
- 19:20: D7182, Delhi
- 20:10: D7218, Melbourne
- 22:50: D7288, Sydney, and on to Auckland
- 23:00: D7504, Seoul Incheon
- 23:10: D7200, Gold Coast
- 23:40: D7532, Osaka Kansai
Source: simpleflying.com
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