AirAsia passenger traffic up 12.3% in Q4

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Bhd announced that it flew 7.931 million passengers in the fourth quarter of its financial year ended Dec 31, 2011, a 12.3 per cent increase over the 7.063 million passengers in the corresponding quarter in 2010.

In its preliminary operating statistics released today, the leading low-cost carrier said that of the passengers carried in the quarter reviewed, 4.855 million were from Malaysia (2010: 4.440 million), 1.821 million from Thailand (2010: 1.622 million) and 1.255 million from Indonesia (2010: 1.001 million).

In 2011, the group recorded a total of 29.860 million passengers, up from the previous year's 25.681 million. Its capacity jumped 13.5 per cent to 37.506 million from 33.058 million, and load factor increased by two per cent to 80 per cent from 78 per cent previously.

AirAsia also said available seat kilometres (ASK) rose 13.5 per cent from 38,704 million to 43,940 million, while revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) surged 18.5 per cent to 35,091 million, from 29,613 million in the same period of 201