Recently, the parent concern of AirAsia stopped all fundingto the company. The joint venture between Tata Sons and AirAsia Berhad waslooking up to the former for funding.
Contrary to the prevailing situation of the airlinesindustry and AirAsia in particular, the company foresees a sustained passengerdemand to sustain its growth in the coming three months.
In addition, the company is going ahead with its plan ofinducting five fully-owned aircrafts. The company’s average fleet age will comedown to three years with this move.
In terms of passenger growth, the company conceded thatdespite directional imbalance in traffic, the trend is getting more evened outwith the emergence of metro-to-metro demand.
Not responding to speculation but affirming passengers'belief in the brand, Sunil Bhaskaran, CEO and MD, AirAsia India, told IANS:"So far as the air traffic is concerned, it has been highly directionalbetween metro and non-metro cities, though we are now beginning to see themetro-metro traffic coming back."
Further, the crowd of travelers is getting younger, "Passengerdemographics have changed significantly with the proportion of under 29- year-oldsincreasing to nearly half of the total passengers and those over 40 reduced toless than half of passengers."
"As young India starts resuming work and planningholidays this festive season, we expect this number to further increase."
However, Bhaskaran pointed out that despite encouragingtraffic growth which has been witnessed over the last few weeks, "theharsh reality is that the traffic is still only 35 per cent of the pre-Covidlevels on a year-on-year basis and we have a long way to go".
"We anticipate the road to recovery to be gradual andsteady; we are cautiously optimistic about the festive season that is comingup," he said.
"We are already operating more than 100 daily flightsnow, which is between 45-50 per cent of our pre-Covid capacity now, and expecta steady rise as we near the festive period."
He elaborated that although uncertainty continues to impactthe demand, there is a sizable domestic market dependent on leisure travel thatwill hopefully open up later this year.
Besides, Bhaskaran said that pent-up demand is nowconverting into a more sustained trend.
"The recent surge in traffic over the long October 2weekend was an encouraging sign for demand for domestic holidays," hesaid
"We are hopeful of continued growth in demand as weenter the festive season."
The company claimed that before the pandemic COVD-19, thecompany was showing healthy growth. "We had nearly doubled our operationsbetween 2018 and 2020 and chalked out plans to continue growing at more than 30per cent year-on-year before the pandemic," he said.
"Before the onset of pandemic, we had already firmed uporders to take delivery of 5 Airbus A320 Neo aircraft with CFM engines and wewould be honouring the same in the next few months."
Walking the talk for his company, the company has opened newroutes keeping in view the demand for the direct connections the customers aredemanding. These routes include Mumbai-Bhubaneswar, Mumbai-Guwahat, and Mumbai-Ranchi.
The resilience presented by the company is a healthy sign thatthe Indian economy’s worst may be getting over.