KUALA LUMPUR (July 27): Shares in AirAsia X Bhd rallied past the RM2 mark amid heavy trade on Thursday (July 27) after its passenger load factor for the second quarter of 2023 (2Q2023) jumped 47% year-on-year (y-o-y), while seat capacity swelled over 26 times to 818,422 seats flown.

The counter reached an intraday high of RM2.34, before paring its gains to settle 53 sen or 29.44% higher at RM2.33, giving the budget medium-haul carrier a market capitalisation of RM1.04 billion.

Trading volume shot up to 53.68 million shares, exceeding the 200-day average volume of 5.57 million shares, and surpassed the last closing volume of 2.68 million shares on Wednesday.

AirAsia X's share price had risen by 308% year-to-date, and by 380% over the past year, according to Bloomberg data.

Maybank Investment Bank (Maybank IB) Research has reinitiated coverage of AirAsia X, with a “buy” rating at RM1.80 and a target price of RM3.58, adding that post Covid-19, fares are a lot higher and aircraft lease rates are sharply lower relative to pre-Covid times.

AirAsia X attributed the hike in seat capacity to additional aircraft being brought into service and flight network further enhanced as compared to the preceding quarter, with a 30% growth being reported.

Additionally, its Malaysian operations demonstrated significant operational improvement across all other key metrics, with the number of passengers carried totalling 621,984 in 2Q2023, representing a surge of 70 times y-o-y, and 23% against the preceding quarter, slightly surpassing the 21% increase in available seat kilometres capacity for the same period.

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