KUALA LUMPUR (July 28): Short-haul, low-cost carrier Capital A Bhd carried 97% more passengers across the group in the second quarter of 2023 (2Q2023) than in 2Q2022, on the back of increased seat capacity and passenger load factors.

In a statement on Friday (July 28), Capital A said total passengers carried by AirAsia Malaysia, AirAsia Thailand, AirAsia Indonesia and AirAsia Philippines rose to 14.24 million in 2Q2023, almost doubling the 7.24 million people carried in 2Q2022.

Overall seat capacity rose 84% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 16.24 million and the load factor increased six percentage points to 88% in 2Q2023. The group operated 146 aircraft during the quarter compared with 90 aircraft a year earlier.

To date, the group has recovered 73% of 1H2019's capacity and 74% of passengers carried, said Capital A.

With the strong resurgence of travel demand, the group's available seat kilometres (ASK), which measures an airline's carrying capacity to generate revenue, grew 132% y-o-y to 18.99 billion, while revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), which indicates the number of kilometers travelled by paying passengers, was up 146% y-o-y to 16.31 billion.

During the April-June 2023 quarter, Capital A said the airline carried 67% more passengers in Malaysia than a year earlier, with 6.45 million passengers recorded compared with 3.85 million passengers in 2Q2022.

In 2Q2023, AirAsia Thailand carried 176% more passengers at 4.64 million from a year earlier while AirAsia Indonesia saw a 113% y-o-y increase in the number of passengers carried to 1.52 million. AirAsia Philippines saw a 64% y-o-y increase in the number of passengers carried to 1.63 million.

Capital A said its airasia Superapp application recorded its highest quarterly average monthly active users (MAU) of 15 million in 2Q2023, up 40% y-o-y. This led to a 102% y-o-y jump in the number of transactions to 7.9 million.

"The encouraging results indicate improved user engagement in the app, as the number of transactions rose more than two-fold compared with the average MAU on a yearly basis," it added.

BigPay’s users also grew 16% y-o-y to reach 1.4 million users in 2Q2023. The gross transaction value also posted an upward trend, climbing 40% y-o-y driven by domestic transactions within the payment and remittance products, said Capital A.

Meanwhile, Capital A's cargo arm Teleport moved 105% more cargo in 2Q2023, recording 45,250 tonnes from 22,133 tonnes in 2Q2022, driven by the increased cargo belly capacity from the return of international flights and increased utilisation.

Asia Digital Engineering, the maintenance, repair and overhaul arm of Capital A, completed 22 base maintenance checks in 2Q2023, up from 12 checks conducted a year earlier, on the commencement of two additional maintenance lines in Senai, Johor. Line maintenance services also grew substantially by 179% y-o-y, of which 98% were from narrowbody aircraft and remaining 2% from widebody aircraft, said Capital A.

At 2.30pm, Capital A shares were unchanged at 91.5 sen, giving it a market capitalisation of RM3.79 billion.