With the Airbus A330 Neo: AirAsia wants to fly to Europe – and from there to the USA

What distinguishes network airlines such as Lufthansa or Delta Air Lines is that they operate through hubs where passengers change planes. In contrast, low-cost airlines rely primarily on point-to-point connections without changing trains. Their flight connections are usually shorter as well.

Because long, low-cost routes are a difficult business model. There are some providers, such as Singapore Airlines' Scoot, which has Berlin and Athens as long-haul destinations in its program, or South Korea's T'Way, which wants to fly to Frankfurt, among other places, in Europe. But neither Southwest from the US nor Ryanair or Wizz Air from Europe fly across the Atlantic.

The larger plans are the A321 XLR and A330 Neo

Now Malaysia's AirAsia announces that it wants to become “the world's first low-cost network provider.” The budget airline made the announcement this week during a visit by Christian Scherer, the new head of Airbus' commercial aircraft division.

But what is behind this advertisement? On the one hand, the AirAsia group includes not only the airline in Malaysia, but also airlines in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and soon also in Cambodia. The company wants to use this increasingly as a multi-swings door system – especially with the new Airbus A321 LR, XLR and A330 Neo aircraft.

“To the East Coast of North America via Europe”

Tony Fernandes, president of Air Asia's parent company Capital A, announced that the A321 LR and The new aircraft will enable access to new destinations, such as North Asia, Australia and Central Asia from Southeast Asia. Orders for 36 A321 Neo aircraft were recently converted to A321 LR aircraft.

“With our fleet of wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft, including the introduction of the A330 Neo, we also want to expand our medium and long-haul network across the European continent, to cities such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, Bratislava, Barcelona, ​​Copenhagen, as well as Africa (Cairo, Nairobi, Cape Town). Likewise “to the east coast of North America (New York, Miami, and Toronto) via Europe and to the west coast of North America (San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Vancouver) via Japan.”

Orders are open for more than 370 Airbus aircraft

AirAsia calls its routes to the USA, especially London and Tokyo, as the map shows, “virtual hubs”. The group wants to merge its short-haul and long-haul businesses, which operate under the Air Asia X brand.

The group has open orders from Airbus for 362 Airbus A321 Neo aircraft, which also includes LR and XLR variants, as well as 15 A330 Neo aircraft in the larger A330-900 variant. The fleet currently includes Airbus A320-200, A320 Neo, A321-200, A321 Neo and A330-300.

In addition to other low cost adapters

If AirAsia succeeds in its plan, a network of this size will be something truly special. However, on a smaller scale, low-cost communications with changes already exist. For example, the Icelandic company Play connects the USA and Europe via its hub in Keflavik.

AirAsia's map shows the new routes it is planning: