Airasia ... Despite Low Oil Prices, Why Price Still UnderPerform?

A new airline called Flymojo will be launched.

Mixed reports are indicating that Flymojo will either be a “value” airline or a “full service” airline, targeting the intra Asean market.

Flymojo signed a letter of intent with Bombardier to purchase 20 CS100 aircraft with an option for another 20. No timeline for the firming up of orders or delivery schedule was revealed.

It is understood that Flymojo is expected to be launched in October 2015 and commence flights in 1Q16.

The CS100 aircraft is a slightly smaller aircraft compared to the A320 that Airasia, and B738s that Malindo and Malaysia Airlines are operating.

Maximum seating on a single class configuration goes up to 125 seats versus the A320’s 180 seats, while flight range is a bit shorter at 2,950 nautical miles versus the A320’s 3,300 nautical miles.

Unlike Malindo Air, which is based in KLIA/Subang, Flymojo is using Senai (which entails much smaller connectivity and feeder traffic from long-haul) as its main hub and Kota Kinabalu as a secondary hub (which gives access to North East Asian traffic).

Industry observer do not expect the share price to perform despite (from 18 March 2015) low oil prices due to the oversupply of airlines in Malaysia.

While the airline is marketing itself as a premium airline, Malaysian aviation is already oversupplied and it will inevitably compete with AirAsia. As a result of this negative surprise, industry observers no longer expect AirAsia’s share price to perform despite low oil prices.

However some do not see Flymojo being in direct competition with Airasia which operates mainly out of KLIA, except perhaps for the highly profitable KUL-BKI route.

After complete delivery of all 20 aircraft (likely to be spread over three to four years), estimate Flymojo to account for just 19% of Airasia Malaysia’s current capacity.

Separately, foreign shareholding at Airasia has retreated from the previous high of 60% (in December 2014) to 58% (at end-Feb 2015).