KUALA LUMPUR (April 29): Capital A Bhd said on Monday that the number of passengers it carried rose 17% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 15.4 million in the first quarter of 2024 (1Q2024), on the back of strong travel demand during the school holidays and Chinese New Year.

Load factor — the proportion of seats filled by paying passengers — rose one percentage-point to 90% in January-March, when compared to the same quarter last year, according to Capital A’s preliminary operating statistics. The company will announce its financial results next month.

“The resurgence of China and India routes both delivered a robust load factor of 94%, higher than pre-Covid due to the visa-free travel corridors of both regions introduced at the end of 2023,” it said in a statement.

Its passenger recovery reached 84% of pre-Covid levels, with both domestic and international segments experiencing growth at a similar rate, while capacity recovery achieved 82% y-o-y.

As of end March, its airline business — comprising AirAsia Malaysia, AirAsia Thailand, AirAsia Indonesia and AirAsia Philippines — deployed 167 operational aircraft.

AirAsia Philippines and Thailand emerged as its top performers, with load factor at 93% each, followed by AirAsia Malaysia with 89% and Indonesia with 83%.

Its AirAsia MOVE, formerly known as airasia Superappp, exceeded 15 million monthly active users in 1Q2024, up 19% y-o-y.

Its e-wallet unit BigPay’s quarterly carded users also grew 12% y-o-y to 1.5 million, though gross transaction value (GTV) fell 8% y-o-y due to deliberate efforts to shed unprofitable GTV.

The group’s logistics arm Teleport, on the other hand, handled 63,945 tonnes of cargo during the quarter, up 79% y-o-y, while utilisation rate rose 5% y-o-y to 16%, even as capacity rose 25%, thanks to higher demand and better operating efficiency.

Its solutions segment delivered over 15.6 million parcels in 1Q2024, 175% more than the previous year’s corresponding quarter, while daily deliveries reached a new average of 172,000.

Asia Digital Engineering (ADE), the group’s maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) service provider, also enjoyed a stellar start in 2024, fuelled by the significant uptick in air travel.

“The company completed 82% more base maintenance checks compared to the same period last year. This performance is well within expectations, as hangar slots have been fully booked until the end of 2024. Additionally, ADE exhibited agility in catering to time-sensitive maintenance needs, with line maintenance checks experiencing an 18% y-o-y increase,” it noted.

As for the group’s inflight service provider, Santan, it recorded 5.1 million units sold in the first quarter of 2024, up 13% y-o-y.

Capital A, whose shares rose as much as six sen or 8.16% in active trades on Monday to 79.5 sen following a proposal announced last Thursday to merge its airline business with AirAsia X Bhd, closed at 79 sen, valuing the group at RM3.34 billion.

AAX, which is buying AirAsia’s short-haul airline businesses currently parked under Capital A, saw its shares rise as much as 18 sen or 13.14% to RM1.55, before closing at RM1.53.