Tom/PER

We’re booked on MH126 on the 31/10 PER-KUL and have received the seat change notification this morning, flight has been downgraded from a A333 to a 738W.

Is the eventual plan for the 738 fleet for them all to undergo cabin upgrade and the 3 with the ‘Old hantu’ non BSI interior to be painted orange once more MAX’s have been delivered? We’ve got a couple of PER-KL flights coming up and Perth seems to see a mixture of both old/new cabins.

-XBE looks like it’s gone up to MNL for a heavy check, it’ll be interesting to see if it gets reconfigured into the standard config during her visit.

The Air Asia X fleet moving forwards is particularly interesting as they seem to be collecting a miss-mash of A330’s from a variety of sources, which brings different configurations. HS-XJA and -XJB have now left the fleet and are in service in Brazil with Azul. Have they actually got any A330NEO’s on firm order with delivery dates? There’s so much marketing spin online it’s hard to decipher what’s correct. Locally with regards to the D7 fleet with only -XXD and -XXC, returning to service this year, there’s not a lot of room for growth there and there’s a distinct difference between the utilisation between the ‘red’ and ‘white’ ones, with the albino ones spending a lot of time parked at KUL in-between services, whilst the full Y configured red one -XBE seems to spend most of its time operating routes to Delhi and DPS.

Thanks JW always appreciate your posts and insights, think it’s safe to save that it’ll be -XXD that returns next month. Still looks odd to me seeing AirAsia planes parked outside the MAB hangars! Also are there any known delivery dates for the upcoming batch of A321NEO’s?

I noticed when we flew out last Friday off 14R that -XXD in the UFC livery was parked outside the hangars all unwrapped and seemingly being prepared for service re-entry. -XXC was also parked adjacent to the hangars with both engines removed. On my last visit in April, both A333’s were parked near the Q gates. I’m still gobsmacked that AK has so many A320’s stored.

Noted -AFD in KCH today, still wearing its ‘Bo Rocks’ livery, did some digging and found out that it’s just re-entered service after being stored since 05/2021. Becomes the oldest active aircraft in the AK, she’s currently operating out of the KCH base.

Just been researching the new AK Perth flights and it appears the inaugural flight on Sunday will be operated by a 321N then A320N’s are scheduled, so forward bookings can’t be that fantastic. Did some further research and it appears these flights can only be operated by ETDO certified birds so it looks like AGA, E, G, H, I, J, L, N, O, Q, R, S, V, RAH, J and M + VAA and VAB are the only aircraft that‘ll be permitted to fly this new route. Just as a side note, I was surprised to be how many inactive and parked A320N’s AK currently has, including -NEO, guessing the lease costs are prohibitive on these frames.

The new AK604/605 KL-PER-KL service begins on 11/3 using A321N’s, it’ll be interesting to see how they handle delays/tech issues with just the current 2 x A321NEO’s in the fleet and whether they sub in EDTO A320N’s for a flight of that duration when unforeseen events occur.

As usual with the AirAsia group there’s lots of promises, spruiking and announcements, which seldom doesn’t seem to materialise into anything. Is there any timeframes when the next factory fresh frames will be actually be delivered to the group? I might be wrong here, but I believe the last factory fresh frame was delivered back in August 2019 and that was -RAT a A320CEO to AK.

-XXR has returned from heavy maintenance in Manila and is back hard at work, anyone know what livery she’s returned in?

Wow that’s a substantial difference in total seating between international and domestic configs on the ex PR A330’s!

I was doing some research on YouTube for some upcoming flights and was surprised to see that -MLF and -MLH have been reconfigured and now feature the new slimline seats as found on -MLJ. Does anyone know if -MLG and -MLI have also been done?

-XXW is back in service, operated an overnight flight down to Perth and she’s currently returning to KL as D7237.

Cheers JW, the Air Asia group fleet movements are fascinating to watch from afar. D7 in particular have gone from having a solid consistent product to a mish mash of interiors and configurations. I watched a recent YouTube video and those ex PR birds, still have Phillipine Airlines logo on the FA display screen near L1!