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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider AirAsiaPH expanding fleet

AirAsiaPH expanding fleet

Published Feb 11, 2023 01:04 pm

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — AirAsia Philippines is increasing its current fleet from 14 to 24 aircraft, expecting to double its passenger load as it re-starts more international routes in 2023.

The budget airline will receive 10 additional aircraft this year to boost both passenger and cargo capacity, Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia's parent firm Capital A Berhad, announced this week.

Overall, "We now have 150 planes (in the AirAsia Aviation Group) and we'll have 204 planes fixed by August," he noted.

Bringing back all of AirAsia's planes was "a massive job” and was his "number one priority", the CEO maintained.

Already, AirAsia has resumed servicing Japan and China and expects the re-opening of economies will restore its full flight capacities in 2023.

The budget airline is gung-ho about the recovery of tourism. "This year will be our best year in a long time and 2024 could be our best year ever," according to Fernandes.

To improve customer relations between the airline and its passengers, AirAsia also launched a digital concierge feature powered by artificial intelligence (AI), “Ask Bo”.

The chatbot replaced AirAsia Virtual Allstar (AVA) and was designed to quickly answer consumer queries, such as live updates on flight status (delays, departures) and changes and boarding information, in more languages, including English, Chinese, Bahasa (BM, Indonesian), Thai, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

AVA handled more than 113 million guests since 2019, answering over 43 million queries in 2020 at the peak of Covid.

Given the size of AirAsia, with thousands of refunds and flight change requests, humans alone cannot cope.

However, “Our guests have spoken and we are listening and learning. We felt their frustration towards AVA. We recognize she fell short of people’s expectations and we want to do better,” Fernandes acknowleged.

AskBo launch

"Ask Bo has a more personal approach and is more relatable and reliable," says AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricky Isla.

AirAsia Aviation group’s CEO Bo Lingam's name and face are on the “Ask Bo” enhanced version of the carrier's customer concierge service.

"He has been at my side for the past 21 years and is the go-to person with all answers to our Group’s airline questions,” was how Fernandes described Lingam.

"The buck stops with me. Ask Bo will make the customer journey easier, simpler, and more informative,” Lingam acquiesced.

Related Tags

Capital adequancy ratio TONY FERNANDES AIRASIA AVIATION GROUP AIRASIA PHILIPPINES ASK BO AIRASIA PH FLEET EXPANSION 2023
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