AirAsia

AirAsia began as something quite different from the airline it became. It was set up on 20 December 1993 by DRB-HICOM, a Malaysian government-linked conglomerate, as a conventional full-service carrier, and flew its first service on 18 November 1996, from Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi with a Boeing 737-300. By 2001 it was heavily in debt. On 5 September 2001 Tony Fernandes and Kamarudin Meranun bought it through their company Tune Air for a token one ringgit, taking on its liabilities, and on 15 January 2002 relaunched it as a no-frills carrier modelled on Southwest Airlines and Ryanair: point-to-point flying, online ticketless sales and low base fares with extras sold separately.

One brand, several airlines

Expansion came quickly. AirAsia opened a second Malaysian hub at Senai (Johor Bahru) in December 2003 and started international flights to Phuket the same month. Rather than fly everywhere on its Malaysian licence, it set up locally owned sister airlines: Thai AirAsia in 2003, Indonesia AirAsia in 2005, Philippines AirAsia in 2012 and later AirAsia Cambodia. Kota Kinabalu and Kuching became hubs in July 2006 and Penang in 2009. Affiliates were also launched in Japan in 2012 and India in 2014, while plans for airlines in China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam ran into obstacles.

This profile covers the Malaysian airline, AirAsia Berhad (code AK). The Thai, Indonesian, Philippine and Cambodian airlines share the brand, website and booking system but fly under their own licences.

Restructuring after the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic grounded most of the fleet in 2020 and left the listed parent, renamed Capital A in January 2022, in financial distress under Bursa Malaysia's PN17 rules. Its rescue plan was to move the airlines out of Capital A and into AirAsia X, the group's separately listed long-haul sister. That transfer of AirAsia Berhad and AirAsia Aviation Group was completed on 18 January 2026, bringing all AirAsia-branded airlines under one listed company. Shareholders then approved renaming AirAsia X Berhad as AirAsia Group Berhad, effective 2 July 2026. For passengers the brand and the flights did not change.

Fleet

AirAsia has flown only Airbus aircraft since retiring its 737-300s. It has been a major Airbus customer, with orders for 200 A320neos in 2011 and 100 A321neos in 2016, and later deliveries re-timed with Airbus in 2021 to run to 2035. A Wikipedia fleet table dated July 2026 lists 111 aircraft for the Malaysian airline: 70 A320ceos, 29 A320neos, eight A321neos and one A321LR, plus three converted A321 freighters used by the group's cargo business, Teleport. Two newer orders point to a change in strategy. In July 2025 the group agreed to buy 50 long-range A321XLRs, intended for one-stop flights to Europe via the Middle East, and in May 2026 it ordered 150 Airbus A220-300s, the first order from the group for the smaller Airbus type, with deliveries due from 2028.

Network

The main base is klia2, the low-cost terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where AirAsia also has its head office, RedQ. Secondary hubs are Penang, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Johor Bahru. From these it flies across Malaysia and to Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, mainland China, India and Australia, where Perth flights began in March 2024. In December 2025 Capital A signed a letter of intent with Bahrain's transport ministry to study a hub there, linking South-east Asia with Europe, Africa and the Middle East.