AirAsia taps data pool, innovation to stay above Covid-19 crisis

Kuala Lumpur

WHILE the Covid-19 pandemic has seen the global aviation industry suffer tremendously with massive lay-offs and airlines scrambling to get a foothold on financial stability, Malaysia's AirAsia is one company that has been busy thinking out of the box to reinvent itself and stay afloat.

The low-cost carrier's huge data pool and foresight to transform their digital ecosystem gave the group a significant advantage over its competitors when the pandemic struck Malaysia and the rest of the world earlier this year, said Aireen Omar, the president of AirAsia Digital.

Previously known as RedBeat Venture, AirAsia Digital was launched in 2018 as the digital venture arm of AirAsia Group.

"When we started our digital journey a few years back, we realised we had a massive pool of data. We took a step further in analysing the data and saw the opportunity that it can be applicable to more than just airline customers," said Ms Aireen in an interview with The Business Times.

Before Covid-19 hit, the company's website had traffic of as much as 60 million visitors each month.

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"By using the data to gain further insights in our customers, we can create other relevant products and personalised offerings through the same platform and cross-sell beyond the travel space."

She described the initiative as "strategic" from a business diversification point of view, to ensure that the airline is able to expand to different revenue streams and not be "overly reliant" on the travel sector.

Ms Aireen joined AirAsia in 2006 as director of corporate finance and six years later she became the CEO of AirAsia Berhad. In 2017, she was appointed to head up AirAsia Digital, as well as take on responsibilities for the digital and technology portfolio.

She said the pandemic and the significant downtime of flights provided the company with the opportunity to fast-track its digital transformation strategy.

In October this year, the airline's official ticketing platform - airasia.com - underwent a major transformation and has expanded to offer various products and services.

The application, coined as a super app by the AirAsia Group, now includes food delivery, grocery delivery and even online shopping, besides the usual sales of flight tickets and hotel rooms.

AirAsia's digital payment service, called BigPay, has 1.2 million users and offers money transfers, with remittances available in 10 countries including Singapore.

The ongoing digital transformation has also allowed AirAsia to create hundreds of jobs for their own staff, who had pivoted from their previous roles such as cabin crew and pilots, to support these new and growing digital business divisions, said Ms Aireen.

In November, it was reported that AirAsia Group had secured a RM300 million (S$98.5 million) loan from Sabah Development Bank for development. AirAsia said the loan, which has already been approved and disbursed, was part of the airline's pivot into the digital business and would help create thousands of new jobs in the process.

"According to our 2020 third-quarter results that were out on Nov 24, our non-airline ancillary grew by 182 per cent as our digital platforms gained traction. We foresee our non-airline revenues will gradually match and overtake our airline revenue in the next five years," said Ms Aireen.

Going into the new year, Ms Aireen said AirAsia will still largely keep in line with its original business of air travel as more travel bubbles are being introduced within the Asian region, Ms Aireen added.

With international services between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore having restarted since Aug 17, as well as state borders reopening within Malaysia, both domestic and international air travel is believed to pick up in the coming months, especially as more countries roll out their Covid-19 vaccine programmes.

Ms Aireen said that AirAsia is looking forward to the creation of more travel bubbles and green lanes, with the airline actively working with its tourism and government partners in Malaysia to make these a reality with low-risk markets such as Thailand, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia.