Malaysia's AirAsia X falls to Q1 loss on pandemic impact

[KUALA LUMPUR] Malaysia's AirAsia X fell to a net loss in its first quarter, a fourth straight quarterly loss as the pandemic slowed air travel demand.

The long-haul arm of AirAsia Group recorded a net loss of 549.7 million ringgit (S$178.2 million) for the January-March quarter versus a profit of 43.3 million a year earlier.

Revenue fell 21 per cent to 924.1 million ringgit.

Passengers carried fell 25 per cent to 1.14 million and the airline's load factor, which measures how full planes are, shrank 11 percentage points to 74 per cent.

Unit costs rose 16 per cent while unit revenue registered zero growth despite ancillary revenue per passenger growing 8 per cent.

REUTERS