Updated on December 10, 2024 at 12:17 p.m.
The resurgence of air travel is seen to sustain the momentum of AirAsia Philippines, which is projecting to service more than 7 million passengers next year.
AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricky Isla, in an event on Monday in Manila, said they were expecting to fly 7.5 million passengers next year—an uptick from 2024 yearend projection of 7.2 million.
He cited the carrier’s strong presence in leisure routes such as Boracay, Puerto Princesa and Bohol, as well as “nonleisure but very strong routes” such as Negros, Bacolod, Iloilo and Tacloban.
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Overseas, Isla said the popular routes were Osaka and Narita in Japan, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Macau and Incheon.
The local unit flew 5.26 million passengers in January to September, which was nearly 7 percent more than 4.93 million passengers it had served in the same period a year ago.
Bo Lingam, aviation CEO of the AirAsia Group, earlier said they were projecting passenger load factor to go beyond 85 percent this fourth quarter as people tend to visit their friends and family to celebrate the holidays.
Passenger load factor measures the percentage of available seating capacity in an aircraft. A higher figure means higher occupancy or more tickets sold.
Last year, the low-cost carrier flew 6.6 million passengers.
Moving forward, the airline will evaluate the market to see where it can launch new routes amid the increasing air travel demand.
“What we will do is we will study very well our slots presence in the Manila airport and from there, we can move forward,” Isla said.
The budget carrier said in September it was keen on launching Manila-US flights by next year.
AirAsia parent company Capital A CEO Tony Fernandes said earlier they would want to make Manila the airline’s hub to America. This means the carrier’s passengers can fly to the US via Manila as their connecting flight.
AirAsia operates in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. The group saw its passenger volume grow by 11 percent to about 46 million in the first three quarters.