Rani: markets like Scandinavia interest us because they are underserved. Rani: markets like Scandinavia interest us because they are underserved.

ATN: Why did you decide to launch flights from Abu Dhabi to Kuala Lumpur?
We are really excited to be part of this fascinating growth story and to play a part in connecting the great city of Abu Dhabi as a hub of the Middle East to our hub in Malaysia. We see Abu Dhabi as a location that offers us strategic benefits geographically, which are right for our A330 aircraft.

ATN: What connecting routes (from Abu Dhabi) will you make your priority?
There are numerous proposals for Africa, Europe and Central Asia; we will choose markets that are unexploited.

We could look at Europe first as it’s a market very familiar with South East Asia while there are many South East Asians wanting to travel to Europe.

Markets like Spain and Scandinavia interest us because they are currently underserved by airlines.

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ATN: How do you keep your fares so low?
AirAsia X has the world’s lowest unit cost enabling us to offer and sustain low fares. We keep our cost base low by the very efficient use of our assets and by choosing the right airport.

It’s a volume strategy — the volumes are high, the margins are low. It’s like Walmart or McDonald’s — stack ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap.

ATN: Where are your biggest cost savings made?
We only fly non-stop and we only have Airbus aircraft. Our planes fly almost 18 hours a day whereas for typical legacy carriers it’s 13 hours. We keep flying our planes and we don’t care about matching connection times.

ATN: Will you sell through the travel trade?
We are reaching out to as many distribution points as possible. Online is our primary model of distribution, but we are formalising GSA relationships and we are on board with the major GDS.In places like the UK, agents will book us and then charge their client a service fee.

ATN: How much cheaper are your fares?
Between 40% and 60% lower than fares on legacy carriers. The earlier you book when the plane is emptier, the cheaper it is. What we find is that when the plane is about 80% full, the price is the same as on Malaysian Airlines.