President of airasia Digital, Aireen Omar said AirAsia has used the downtime during the pandemic to focus on developing their digital and other non-airline businesses.
“Covid-19 has caused the biggest crisis in aviation history with many airlines, including AirAsia, grounding their entire fleets at one point. However, a silver lining is that the pandemic presented AirAsia with the opportunity to fast track its super app project, which actually commenced three years ago.
“The development of our digital and non-airline revenue business divisions is definitely a game changer for AirAsia. We are highly optimistic that airasia Digital’s ventures like Teleport, BigPay, Santan and the airasia.com super app will break even in 2021, paving the journey to profitability by 2022,” she said.
“AirAsia has pivoted from just an airline into a one-stop travel and lifestyle platform through the recently-launched airasia.com super app that is fast gaining a foothold amongst the Asean community and beyond, offering shoppers and bargain hunters head-turning deals for AirAsia and non-AirAsia flights, hotel bundles, duty free and merchandise, health, Islamic services, and much more,” Aireen said.
Airasia Digital’s fintech business BigPay that aims to be Asean’s first digital bank, has just been granted a community credit licence by the government of Malaysia, enabling it to offer a wider range of financial services including micro-credit to lower income and unbanked segments of the community slated for early 2021.
Meanwhile, its cargo and logistics division Teleport has also grown during the pandemic, providing air logistics solutions to businesses across the region and now last-mile door-to-door delivery services in key cities.
Additionally, Santan is set to have around a dozen outlets in Malaysia alone by December, followed by other Asean countries from next year.
Modelled as a franchise fast food chain, Santan offers Asean-inspired dishes hugely popular on AirAsia flights like nasi lemak, chicken rice, nasi padang, basil chicken and beef tapa.
AirAsia has implemented many new innovations as part of the airline’s digital transformation, including biometric facial recognition known as F.A.C.E.S., contactless check-in facilities at the airport and Scan2Fly where guests can scan and upload any required medical documentation during the online self-check-in process to determine a passengers’ eligibility to fly in real time, before arriving at the airport.
