AirAsia officially welcomed the future of its single-aisle fleet with the arrival of its first Airbus A321neo aircraft on November 22, that is set to present the airline group with greater efficiencies and higher capacity.

This is the first of 353 A321neos on order by the AirAsia Group which will eventually replace the existing fleet of A320 and A320neo aircraft throughout the network covering Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Japan.

It is now set to become the first A321neo aircraft operating in Malaysia.

With 236 seats – a 27% increase in capacity compared to AirAsia’s present fleet of A320 (180 seats) and A320neo (186 seats) – the A321neo will enable AirAsia to serve strong ongoing demand across the network with significant operational efficiencies and open up opportunities to explore new destinations, with more than 10% fuel savings.

AirAsia will initially operate the aircraft from its Kuala Lumpur hub to cities across Asia, with the first destinations including Kuching, Kota Kinabalu, Singapore, Bangkok and Shenzhen.

The new aircraft, with registration number 9M-VAA, was welcomed by Malaysia’s Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture YB Datuk Mohamaddin Ketapi, together with AirAsia’s senior management team in a ceremonial event at Sepang Aircraft Engineering (SAE) here today.

Earlier this year, AirAsia converted 253 orders for the A320neo to the larger A321neo version, with a total of 353 aircraft on order, making AirAsia one of the world’s largest customer for the A321neo.

AirAsia Group currently operates a wholly Airbus Family fleet of aircraft, flying out of its hubs in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Japan.

Photo: AirAsia. 9M-VAA wears a special “3.2.1 take off” livery.