Now that Covid is “officially over,” so is AirAsia superapp’s ambitions of being a lifestyle superapp.
AirAsia will now be killing its other operations in the superapp to concentrate on what Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia moms and dad company Capital A, calls its bread and butter– travel.
“Travel has returned in full force, and I can formally state that, in my opinion, Covid is over for AirAsia, so we will be going back to selling travel through the superapp,” Fernandes told Skift.
He said the business through its superapp business had offered a whole lot of services and products during Covid simply to keep the turnover going.
“However then we are not a Grab or a Gojek, we are a Traveloka,” Fernandes said, without delay adding, “And maybe a little bit of Grab and Gojek.” Calling himself a Robin Hood versus e-commerce companies like Shopee, Foodpanda and the “huge boys,” Fernandes had in 2021 spoke about bringing the airline’s underdog mentality to the building of a “low-priced unicorn” of Asian superapps.
Fernandes likewise said that he is attempting to get all his 204 airplane to fly by May.
“With all 204 airplanes flying and ferrying around 90 million guests, the characteristics of the AirAsia superapp will alter significantly,” he stated.
E-Commerce Through Responsibility Free
The AirAsia leading boss stated the superapp would now focus on delivering the very best worth flights across the area and the world too increase its conversion of hotels.
“A huge strategy of mine is also to bring e-commerce in through duty totally free. We’re going to try and alter the way people purchase travel,” he said.
In May 2021, primary industrial officer Amanda Woo was made CEO to accelerate the development of the superapp.
Another focus for the superapp in 2023 would be ride-hailing. “We’re now doing about 15,000 flights a day and we are tiny compared to Get in Southeast Asia however then we were tiny as an airline company when we began.”
The superapp would also be retaining the food shipment service, while doing it “a bit differently,” Fernandes stated not disclosing the details but with a pledge of an interesting announcement soon on the food delivery front.
Calling fintech an essential part of travel, Fernandes spoke about the role that BigPay, Capital A’s fintech arm, would play in creating financing for travel as well as for insurance coverage.
Last year, BigPay announced the launch of its fully digital loans as part of the broader suite of financial services offerings.
“Now that travel has returned, we’ve moved our focus to making the superapp quite a travel fintech superapp.”
Announcing its 3rd quarter outcomes for the period ending September 30, 2022, AirAsia superapp posted a quarterly segmental income of $24 million, compared to $19 million in the 2nd quarter.
The superapp attained favorable incomes before interest, taxes, devaluation and amortization of $3.7 million compared to $212,000 in the 2nd quarter.
Since its launch in August 2021, the superapp’s ride-hailing vertical completed 2 million trips in the quarter ending September 30, 2022.
What Is AirAsia Republic?
Having developed a loyalty scheme of almost 51 million members with 12 million active regular monthly users, Fernandes now feels it is time to reveal his vision of an AirAsia Republic, which in his words is “a vibrant nation of people that are linked to the AirAsia ecosystem.”
With communities, ecommerce opportunities and messenger services through which users would be able to talk with each other, AirAsia Republic, according to Fernandes, is the future of the superapp and essential to airlines.
“It is an area where AirAsia brings Southeast Asia closer together, enabling the community to share details, engage and develop connections and gain from each other. A member of AirAsia Republic would not require to get out of the ‘country’ for their travel solutions.”
And in a digital country, Fernandes thinks crypto would be the perfect currency.
“I think AirAsia must have a cryptocurrency. Travelers in Southeast Asia would like one currency to walk around and we have the ecosystem to do that.”
Nevertheless, while he said that he entirely thinks in the digital currency, Fernandes did point out that the crypto world is in a bit of a mess today and therefore he ‘d choose to tread carefully.
Resurrecting AirAsiaX
2023 is also the year in which AirAsia X, the low-cost long-haul affiliate of AirAsia Air travel Group expects to leave the Practice Note 17 (PN17) status, according to Fernandes.
AirAsia X slipped into PN17 status in October 2021.
PN17 is released by Malaysian stock market– Bursa Malaysia to companies considered to be in financial distress. Companies would be required to submit a regularisation strategy to keep the listing status.
On stepping down as the acting group CEO of AirAsia X, Fernandes stated it was not a lot a stepping down as it was the conclusion of a job.
“I had stepped in for an extremely short stint to resurrect AirAsia X. Once I attained that and we got back to success, I went back to my real task, which is Capital A,” he stated, including that he anticipates the group to return to profitability from the second quarter of 2023. Capital A owns BigPay, AirAsia superapp, logistics service Teleport, the aircraft engineering division Asia Digital Engineering and AirAsia Air Travel, which doesn’t include AirAsia X.
The ‘Andriod’ View
In what he believes is an Android method of functioning which is more open source, distinct from the Apple view of whatever being within the Apple ecosystem, Fernandes is likewise very sure that he wants to continue offering tickets of other airline companies on his superapp.
With ambitions of being an Expedia or a Traveloka, he wants to make sure that he has everything for all tourists and called his technique as “disruptive, inclusive and various.”
“There are really few people who would just purchase AirAsia tickets. With Google search and travel sites providing many options, if an airline has much better offerings than us, then so be it,” he said adding that the superapp business is different from the airline.
“The AirAsia staff likewise get upset when they see their rivals on the superapp. However then I’m attempting to develop value for the investors while producing brand-new companies,” Fernandes stated.