AIR Asia Bhd shareholders will be happy to learn that the low-cost carrier has big plans.

They include having digital offerings, running its own airports and its imminent expansion to Europe and the US. It also just announced a joint-venture airline in China.

But perhaps the most significant plan is a possible merger this year with its sister airline, AirAsia X Bhd (AAX).

”By the time we are done, you will see a different animal. It won’t be just an airline,” its co-founder and chairman Datuk Kamarudin Meranun tells FocusM.

Its ambitious plans will see Air Asia moving beyond its low-cost carrier roots. Even so, the media-shy Kamarudin, 55, and his more high-profile partner and co-founder Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, 53, have catapulted Air Asia into the big league since it began 16 years ago. 

http://www.focusmalaysia.my/Mainstream/big-plans-taking-off