KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — AirAsia X is expected to soon open its newest destination in Africa as part of its expansion plan. The low-cost medium and long-haul carrier’s new African destination is Kenya and it is expected to operate four weekly flights between Kuala Lumpur (KUL) and Nairobi (NBO).
According to Aeroroutes, AirAsia X will operate the route from November 15, 2024 with the Airbus A330-300. Two direct flights are planned: D7101 from KUL to NBO departing at 19:00 and D7101 from NBO to KUL departing at 00:30. The flight takes about 9 to 10 hours, which is significantly shorter than other alternatives with a stopover.
In April 2024, AirAsia X obtained air traffic rights (ATR) from Mavcom to operate the KUL – NBO route with up to 7 flights per week from October 2024.
At the time of writing, the flights are not yet bookable. We expect further details to be announced shortly before the official launch. In addition to Nairobi, the airline plans to fly to Cape Town in South Africa and Cairo in Egypt.
In February 2024, AirAsia announced plans to become the world’s first low-cost network carrier to create a new hub-and-spoke model, including additional virtual hubs in Asia, Europe, Africa and the US.
With the introduction of newer aircraft such as the A321neo, A321LR, A321XLR and A330neo, the low-cost carrier aims to expand its medium and long-haul network to new continents. As part of its restructuring plans, it has converted 36 of its A321neo orders to A321LRs, which offer a longer range of up to 8,300 km in a single-class configuration. The A321XLR can fly up to 8,700 km further, making it easy to serve long and narrow routes with increased frequency.
Tony Fernandes said: “With our fleet of wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft, which includes the introduction of the A330neo, we aim to expand our medium and long-haul network to the European continent, to cities such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, Bratislava, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Africa (Cairo, Nairobi, Cape Town), to the east coast of North America (New York, Miami, Toronto) via Europe and to the west coast of North America (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver) via Japan.”
He added: “As one of their largest customers, we have an order book of 647 aircraft, including 612 A320 Family aircraft and 35 A330 Family aircraft. A further 362 A321neo, 20 A321XLR and 15 A330neo are scheduled for delivery over the next decade as we aim to be bigger than ever in the future.” – SoyaCincau
