AirAsia orders additional A321XLRs
In the sidelines of a state visit by the Malaysian Prime Minister to France, Airbus and AirAsia signed an agreement for an order for additional Airbus A321XLRs for the low-cost carrier. The new deal, announced 4 July 2025, is for an order for 50 aircraft, with options to convert 20 of its exisiting A321neo orders into the XLR-variant.
With this latest order, AirAsia now has 70 A321XLRs on firm order. It expects to take delivery of its first one in 2028 but discussions are being held with Airbus to see if this can be brought forward. Next to the XLRs, the low-cost carrier also has open orders for 358 A321neos.
According to an article of FlightGlobal, AirAsia is also in negotiations with Airbus about its fifteen A330-900s it has on order. The CEO of the airline is considering to cancel this order or swap it for other narrowbody aircraft as the size of the A330 is not fitting the airline's business model anymore. By 2035, AirAsia envisions to have a fleet of 500 narrowbodies.
Today, the AirAsia Group, which consists of AirAsia (Malaysia), AirAsia Cambodia, AirAsiaX, Indonesia AirAsia, Philippines AirAsia, Teleport, Thai AirAsia, and Thai AirAsia X is operating a fleet of 254 aircraft. The breakdown of this is 168 A320s, 40 A320neos, three A321-200P2Fs, fifteen A321neos, and 28 A330-300s.
Illustration by Airbus.